Watchmen

Since I have little tolerance for “graphic novels” also knows as really thick comic books, I never read or even heard of the “Watchmen” until I saw the mind bendingly awesome movie trailer. I still had no bloody idea what this was all about, but I was told by someone who openly admitted to having read the “Watchmen” graphic novel not once, but three times, that it is basically a story about retired superheroes. Watchmen is not a typical superhero action movie, but is more of a historical drama featuring masked vigilantes. These heroes run the gambit of honorable to certifiably insane and are not members of the Justice League, hell, the only one with any “powers” is Doctor Manhattan.

Set in 1985, our modern American history has been altered due to the existence of the “Minutemen” who were the original group of masked vigilantes that formed in the 30s and 40s. Due to them, we won Vietnam and Nixon continued to be elected president and the Cold War never thawed. It’s 1985 and the Minutemen are retired, and a second group of vigilante heroes known as the Watchmen formed in their place, but were later outlawed and forced to disband and let their rubber costumes collect dust. It isn’t until one of the original Minutemen known as the Comedian is murdered that the interest of one Watchman is peaked. Rorschach, with his blotted mask is the only one who refused to retire his mask, it doesn’t help that he’s insane, sees the murder of the Comedian as a warning sign for all “masks” and tries to pull his Watchmen partners out of hibernation.

From here the story grows to inordinate proportions. Flashbacks provide the history of the original heroes and reveal that they were not the chivalrous heroes we expect them to be, and the lives of our new generation of heroes becomes tangled in politics and ancestry.

The Watchmen story is heavy, deep and profound. The ability to fit so much of what was in the original novel into a Hollywood production was nothing more than a daunting task and could have been tragic and disconnected, instead, it was well paced and engrossing. Other than not having been familiar with the story, I have not one single complaint. This was a phenomenal movie, from the acting to the visual impact the effects made. I would recommend this to anyone who is interested in seeing it but be warned that this is the superhero equivalent to a Hubert Selby Jr. novel and will not feature the likes of Vin Diesel.