Check Out the Trailer

I am a WATCHMEN comic fan. I think it’s important to say that right from the start, because it informs my perspective on Zack Snyder’s film rendition. The material works better as a comic, where it finds a perfect middle ground between the visual and the literary. On the screen, it doesn’t have the visceral drive that made THE DARK KNIGHT a thrill ride as well as a work of pop art. That doesn’t mean WATCHMEN isn’t a work of pop art. Those unfamiliar with the original material might be quite perplexed with this heady superhero drama. This isn’t Bang! Boom! Whomp! material. It’s superheroes going through an existential crisis, wrapped around a murder mystery. A murder mystery that might just involve all of mankind.

In an alternative version of Earth, where costumed superheroes have been outlawed and Richard Nixon is still president in 1985, The Comedian (Jeffrey Dean Morgan, TV’s GREY’S ANATOMY) is thrown from his apartment window. He was a masked vigilante before becoming a government assassin. For his former ally Rorschach (Jackie Earle Haley, LITTLE CHILDREN), his murder is not a random act of violence against a savage man, but a hit on former masks. Rorschach goes to warn his other former partners. Nite Owl II, or Dan Dreiberg (Patrick Wilson, LITTLE CHILDREN), is now a pudgy middle-aged man who longs for his glory days when his superior tech skills and cool costume made him feel like a real man. Dr. Manhattan (Billy Crudup, ALMOST FAMOUS) is like a god. He’s the only superhero with superpowers, which are infinite. Human relationships are difficult for him because he views life not in terms of a human lifespan, but in terms of eons. This makes living with him difficult for Silk Spectre II, aka Laurie Jupiter (Malin Akerman, 27 DRESSES). Adrian Veidt, aka Ozymandias, is the smartest and wealthiest man on Earth, who wants to bring free energy to everyone, making him suspect to the powerful who are invested in war.
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