The Watchmen (2009)

Watchmen is a gruelling experience. It is however immensely impressive in its dense storytelling and evocative use of visuals and music to tell an alternative history of the mid-to-late 20th Century. This is a world where events such as the Vietnam War, the assassination of JFK and the Cold War are recognisable but twisted into an alternative reality populated by gangs of masked vigilantes named Watchmen, only one of whom appears to have genuine superpowers.

Set in the 1980s and featuring a cast of relative unknowns, the story starts with the murder of a Watchman named The Comedian (Jeffrey Dean Morgan), years after the band of masked heroes has been disbanded and most of them have disappeared into obscure retirement. It seems someone is trying to kill the retired Watchmen at a time when Dr Manhattan’s (a scientist imbued with superpowers after an atomic experiment went wrong) abilities are the only thing standing between nuclear war between the USA and the Soviet Union.

Only one of the Watchmen is still active: Rorschach (Jackie Earle Haley), a deeply disturbed masked man beset by demons from an abusive past and harbouring serious grudges against a morally corrupt society. Rorschach begins to investigate The Comedian's death, reactivating a number of his former partners in the process. 

Watchmen is unprecedented as a success in bringing a complex graphic novel to the screen. Without any doubt it is the most fully realised attempt anyone has yet made to bring an Alan Moore book to life. Forget the way From Hell, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and V for Vendetta were butchered. The attention to detail paid by director Zack Snyder (director of 300) is phenomenal.

The use of '60s, '70s and '80s music is terrifically well-judged, and the opening credits set the scene in such a way as to tell a complex back-story evocatively and informatively. And yet…at two hours and forty minutes Watchmen is a cinematic tribute to the book rather than a piece of filmic art in its own right. The excessive gore in certain sections is also unnecessary and doesn't quite fit with the film, oddly.

Unlike traditional comic book-based blockbusters there are no true heroes and no true villains. Realising there are deep moral complexities at play in the book is thought-provoking, and because you read a book at your own pace and in your own time, deeply satisfying. The film does not give the viewer the space to actually ponder on this as it is a fixed timeframe, making it more of an exercise in force-feeding than thought-provocation. In parts it is suffocatingly densely plotted, disengaging the viewer.

Ultimately, Watchmen is the most faithful and successful adaptation of an Alan Moore book yet, and much better than any attempt to turn it into a straight action film would have turned out. But it is destined for cult status. Phenomenally impressive and yet somehow unsatisfying on some levels, the superhero genre may have gained its very own Apocalypse Now.

Director: Zack Snyder
Starring: Billy Crudup, Malin Akerman, Jackie Earle Haley, Jeffrey Dean Morgan 
Certificate: 18
Runtime: 160 minutes (approx.)
Release date: 27 July 2009
RRP: £24.99

Michael Evans, Herbert Smith