Okay, I convinced Steph to come with me to see Watchmen last night. Wednesday nights are sometimes our impromptu movie nights because the theaters tend to be devoid of annoying teenagers talking on their cell phones and to each other. We saw Iron Man this way and it can be a pleasant experience.
I’ve had several people ask me what I thought of this movie so I thought I’d do a semi-movie review. I’m also going to talk a bit about the graphic novel because I’m guessing the majority of you may not know the history behind it. It’s interesting how big a release this movie became considering the average movie going patron may not really know who or what Watchmen is or where it came from. So before I talk about the movie, let’s just do a quick recap about where the story of Watchmen came from and what it’s about. If you just want the movie review, you impatient sonova-bee sting, then skip down to that section.
Watchmen was a twelve issue comic book limited series released in 1986 and 1987 by DC Comics. It was written by legendary writer Alan Moore who also wrote other famous limited edition comics League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, V for Vendetta and From Hell. Moore is notorious for being extremely anti-establishment and has preemptively dis-owned the movie versions of all of his comic novels. Alan Moore’s idea was to take a hard look at superheroes and portray them as normal, flawed human beings. Moore based the story in our reality, albeit a slightly altered one in which superheroes existed. In keeping with our reality, even though the characters are called superheroes, only one character displays obvious supernatural powers. The appearance of these heroes has altered the outcome of certain historical events including the Vietnam War, which we win with help from the heroes and Richard Nixon’s presidency which is extended because of the win in Vietnam. Moore would use this setting to deconstruct the idea of superheroes as benevolent crime-fighters and show that they, too, are susceptible to the human traits of selfishness, greed and murder.
Cavalcade of Awesome 