Do Superheroes do this to police?

I keep hearing people on television call Watchmen a superhero movie. It now makes me wonder if any of the people who have called it this have actually seen it.

It takes a very sick and demented mind to think of any of the main characters in this movie, save maybe one, as a superhero. It would also take a lot of exaggeration to call any of them crime fighters. It is the story of five people with far above average fighting skills, costumes, nicknames and very serious personality disorders.

It works for what it is trying to do; it is trying to show that if there were actual superhuman crime fighters out there that everyone relied on/hated, as in every other comic book movie, they wouldn’t have the patience or personalities needed to run a huge enterprise or deliver pizzas. This movie tells the story of sociopaths, egomaniacs, heroes turned two-dollar whores and one glowing blue man who thinks on such another level he can’t see the point of dealing with Earth anymore.

The one problem with this movie is the length. There are certain movies that need their near-three hours to tell the story that needs to be told (Benjamin Button, The Departed, Titanic). Then there are those like Watchmen. This movie, like the Cold War it takes place in, seems to be drawn out and turned back in on itself over and over for no good reason at all. It just seems everyone’s story could have been told and nothing lost with a lot of the film being left on the cutting room floor.

That is not to say the movie wasn’t good. Director Zack Snyder took me exactly where I thought Frank Miller would take me with The Spirit. That movie ended up being one of the worst I’ve seen in quite some time. This movie returned me to the feeling I had the first time I saw Miller’s Sin City. The film noir narration that doesn‘t come off as corny. The awesome half-drawn, half-live action cinematography. The superhuman people dealing with all too human problems. Not the “I can’t get my girl to understand my double life” problems. More of the “My parents expected me to do this/I’m a workaholic who’s not sure I care about work” problems. Only with a dark twist that involves super-crime fighters attempting to rape other super-crime fighters and realizing the kidnapped girl you’ve been looking for is not alive when you see two German Shepherds fighting over her chopped up leg. (This review contains no spoilers of any significance, I assure you.)

Snyder’s attempt to show how history as we know it changed due to The Watchmen was interesting to me as a history buff, if not a bit confusing at times. You witness one of these “crime fighters” as the actual shooter in a graphic reenactment of the JFK assassination in the first five minutes of the film. This makes me wonder if that had something to do with the fact that Nixon was president in 1985 when most of the movie takes place. It’s never explained. There are interesting tidbits, such as the quote, “I think if we would’ve lost this war (Vietnam), the people would’ve driven themselves crazy. But we didn’t. Thanks to you.” Makes you think.

This movie is definitely a must see for any fan of the graphic novel or any comic book/ graphic novel that comes close. If you liked 300, or especially Sin City, chances are you will like this. For the rest of us, as long as you don’t mind a 2 hour and 45 minute movie or the thought of seeing pregnant women shot dead and a blue, glowing penis just hanging there whenever it’s better half is onscreen, I would give it a shot.