Watchmen

Watchmen is a 2009 superhero film directed by Zack Snyder, who also directed ‘300'. It is based on the 1986-87 twelve-issue limited comic book series created by writer Alan Moore, artist Dave Gibbons and colourist John Higgins, in which Moore used the story as a means to reflect contemporary anxieties and to analyse the then superhero concept. The original storyline takes place in an alternate history US, where superheroes materialised in the 1940s.Their existence is shown to have altered the outcome of real-world events by dramatically changing the outcome of the Vietnam War, and the Presidency of Richard Nixon.

The Minutemen

Keeping to its original concept, the film adaptation is set in an alternate-history 1940 in which masked, costumed vigilantes fight crime in America. These vigilantes form a group called the Minutemen, and their purpose was "to finish what the law couldnt". Their comic adventures include encounters with John F Kennedy and Andy Warhol among many others. These first superheroes were often killed in action, or suffered from other ‘mortal' conditions, unlikely to strike the contemporary superhero, resulting in their demise. By 1985, a second generation of superheroes, attempts to form a team calling themselves Watchmen, but within this parallel world, it seems the masked avengers have been outlawed. The streets are ugly and the world is on the brink of a nuclear war. The only Watchmen known to the public are the infinitely wise and super powerful Dr Manhattan (Billy Crudup) a glowing blue entity and Veidt, aka Ozymandias (Matthew Goode) who is one of the richest men in the world. The rest of them seem to lurk in the shadows.

As tensions heighten between the US and the Soviet Union over Afghanistan, the feisty ‘mask' Rorschach discovers that a colleague, formerly known as the Comedian, has been murdered, and quickly jumps to the conclusion someone is plotting to kill all surviving Watchmen. This assumption brings the Watchmen together again, and this forms the basis for the rest of the plot...

Visually, Snyder has managed to deliver stunning effects, and although he opted to shoot more sets as opposed to using chroma-key to support his CGI backgrounds, he closely modeled his storyboards on the comic in a similar fashion to ‘300'. It is a very close re-creation of the comic, but is also a perfect example of how material often loses something critical when translated onto different media - and this view is also reflected in creator of the original idea Alan Moore, who has refused to have his name attached to any film adaptations of his work. Furthermore, he has stated he has no interest in seeing Snyder's adaptation ""There are things that we did with Watchmen that could only work in a comic, and were indeed designed to show off things that other media can't".

As for character development, if you dont know the characters from the graphic novel, you will have a hard time keeping up with their multi-decade saga. There were plenty of storylines, but none long enough for you to become emotionally involved with, especially for a movie thats over 160 minutes long. Nonetheless, Watchmen is a brave film for a major studio to make and without a doubt it would not exist in its present form without the success of 300. It is incredibly dark (both in tone as well as shooting style) with events that would be an abomination to any other superhero story. The less you know about the story, the better so there will be no spoilers here but suffice to say Watchmen's version of a happy ending is a far cry from the Hollywood norm. A unique approach is taken by Snyder regarding the action in Watchmen, expanding on the action scenes in the comic without making it feel too unnecessary. His efforts are aptly supported by the incredibly game cast, excellent cinematography and near perfect visual effects - this film is amazing to look at but also manages to create an entire world in a way which most superhero stories never do. I would put this up there with the new darker versions of Batman. It's a much deeper and twisted tale with complex characters whose motivations are not understandable to themselves.

Watchmen is something special and deserving of analysis and discussion. As bold an attempt at commercial film-making as I can remember, Watchmen is an undeniably unique movie experience - rich, perverse, violent and resonant.