Latex Movie Review: The Watchmen

In 1985 Charlton Comics went bankrupt after 40 years in the business. It's superhero characters were sold off to DC who turned them over to writer Alan Moore to write a miniseries that would introduce the characters to their readers. Moore went overboard and wrote a story that killed off many of the characters and left the others in exile. Telling Moore that he missed the point, that DC wanted to use the newly acquired heroes, not destroy them, editor Dick Giordano turned down Moore's proposal. But he liked the story and asked Moore to rewrite it using newly created heroes. The end result was the groundbreaking miniseries The Watchmen. The success of the comic inspired producers Joel Silver and Lawrence Gordon to purchase its film rights for 20th Century Fox even before the final chapters had been published. For the next five years the movie went through pre-production and a script by Sam Hamm who a year later would write the script for Tim Burton's Batman. DC's parent company Warner Brothers wanted the film rights back and Fox sold it to them. Warner Hired Terry Gilliam to write a new script and direct, but ultimately he quit the project saying that the book was unfilmable unless Warner agreed to film it as a five-hour movie. Gilliam believed that anything shorter would take away from the essence of the original comic. Eventually Warners dropped the project. Producer Gordon stuck with the project as it was passed around from studio to studio and different directors before it went back to Warner Brothers who became interested after the success of their film adaption of Frank Miller's 300. That movie's director Zack Snyder was hired to direct The Watchmen and the movie was finally completed.

The finished product comes close to being faithful to its source material, even taking place in 1985, the year the comic book was written. Taking place in an alternative parallel universe where history was changed by the arrival of costumed heroes in the 1940s who band together in an organization called The Minutemen. In this world the Vietnam War was won and Nixon was never impeached. And thanks to the elimination of term limits he is still the president. In the early ' 80s masked vigilantes are outlawed and the Minutemen disband with the exception of a hero called Rorschach ( Jackie Earle Haley ) who continues to fight crime as an outlaw. The only other active heroes both work for the federal government; The Comedian ( Jeffery Dean Morgan ) and Dr Manhattan ( Billy Crudup ) who is the only hero with actual super powers. The movie begins with the murder of The Comedian and the investigation of his death by Rorschach who believes that someone is targeting the Minutemen. Inevitably this leads to the surviving ex-Minutemen to don their costumes again and return to action.

Zack Snyder's movie is stunning to watch, and is among my favorite all time films, even more so now that I have seen the ultimate cut. Snyder has done what most directors of comic book movies have failed to do, flesh out the characters. None of the usual cardboard or over the top acting found in most superhero films, each one has depth. The standout performance comes from Jackie Earle Haley as Rorschach. Haley gives his character the intensity of a serial killer, a hero who has become so disillusioned with criminals that he goes beyond simply arresting them and becomes their judge, jury and executioner. Even after he is unmasked and sent to prison where most of the inmates are those he arrested, Haley makes you believe that it is the inmates who are in trouble and not Rorschach. Night Owl II would appear to be the movie's Batmanesque character, yet Patrick Wilson plays him as a nerd, more like you would expect from Clark Kent. An unusual choice considering that every actor who has played Batman since Keaton had portrayed him as stern and gravely voiced. This makes the character far more believable, as does Malin Akerman's portrayal of Silk Spectre II as the young thrill seeking girl. Billy Crudup perhaps had the most challenging role, playing a completely nude man in blue makeup. As Dr. Manhattan he was limited to a character who had no human emotions, usually. Perhaps the most underrated performance in the movie belongs to Jeffrey Dean Morgan as The Comedian. Dead in the first few minutes of the movie but appearing in numerous flashbacks his character is both despicable and pitiful. Each actor gives performances that reveal the pain and regrets deep inside their characters. And that is important as the heart of Alan Moore's original story was to show the downside of superheroes, something the other comic books rarely explored ( including Marvel who's characters usually only tangled with every day problems ) and at the time never took to any extreme. I do realize that there are many who did not like the film and found it boring. It is one of those polarizing movies that you either love or hate, and it seems to be split evenly between those who praise it and those who pan it. If you were expecting a typical superhero action movie then forget it. The Watchmen is mostly introspective and not a typical action movie, although I suppose with such a long running time there could exist an edit which is almost entirely the action sequences. That would be a shame because then a great story would be lost.

THE SCENE:
As pointed out, this review is based on the 3 hour and 25 minute edit of the movie. Scenes will vary on other edits of this movie. The we want to watch this movie; Malin Akerman wearing her skin-tight latex Silk Spectre II costume. A nice combination of yellow and black with black thigh high boots and garters. Since the movie opens with the costumed heroes retired, she is first seen in the costume in flashback scenes. The first is at 48 minutes, another at 1 hour 29 minutes, and another flashback at 1 hour 33 minutes. At 2 hours and 8 minutes there is a dream sequence where Akerman wears the Silk Spectre II costume. The first time her character actually puts the costume on in real time is at 2 hours 15 minutes. After a nice toe to head shot of her character coming down the stairs she joins Nite Owl II as he rescues children trapped in a burning building, this followed by both heroes having sex in Nite Owl's aircraft while it hovers in the air, Akerman unzipping and removing her costume. At 2 hours and 22 minutes there is a quick scene of the two heroes, now naked, relaxing in the aircraft after sex. This scene begins by panning past the Silk Spectre II costume laying on the floor. Shortly after Akerman has the costume back on as both heroes rescue Rorschach from a prison riot. At 2 hours 28 minutes the heroes return to Nite Owl's base where Dr Manhattan is waiting for them and then transports Akerman to Mars for a conversation. They are both seen on mars again at 2 hours 37 minutes and again at 2 hours 49 minutes. At 3 hours 8 minutes Dr Manhattan and Silk Spectre II return to Earth to discover the city destroyed and from there go to Antarctica to confront the movie's villain. Aside from the Silk Spectre costume Akerman also wears a shortened leather trench coat which can be seen at at 1 hour 7 minutes, 1 hour 32 minutes, 1 hour 37 minutes and 1 hour 41 minutes.