{"id":4986,"date":"2009-03-03T19:34:13","date_gmt":"2009-03-03T19:34:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/?p=4986"},"modified":"2009-03-03T20:31:31","modified_gmt":"2009-03-03T20:31:31","slug":"watchmen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/2009\/03\/03\/watchmen\/","title":{"rendered":"Watchmen"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Watchmen<\/a><\/p>\n

After years of thinking it would never reach the screen, I finally saw the film adaptation of Watchmen<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0last week.<\/p>\n

If you are unfamiliar with the source material, it explores what happens to a group of superheroes in an alternative 1985 in which Richard Nixon is a 5-term president and the world stands on the brink of nuclear Armageddon<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The story begins with the vigilante\u00a0Rorschach<\/a>\u00a0(Jackie Earle Haley<\/a>) investigating the murder of a former hero called the\u00a0Comedian<\/a>\u00a0(Jeffrey Dean Morgan<\/a>), and he uncovers a wider plot involving his now retired colleagues.<\/p>\n

Director Zack Snyder<\/a> explains more in this featurette:<\/p>\n

<\/object>\u00a0<\/p>\n

One of the reasons the graphic novel<\/a> by\u00a0Alan Moore<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Dave Gibbons<\/a>\u00a0built up such a fanbase is that it deconstructs the ideas of traditional comic book superhero in dark and often fascinating ways.<\/p>\n

But it has proved an incredibly difficult film to bring to the screen with its extended flashbacks, violence and bleak tone.<\/p>\n

However, after 300<\/a> became a huge and unexpected hit, Warner Bros let Zack Snyder do his dream project which was a no holds barred version of Watchmen.<\/p>\n

The good news is that Snyder has been incredibly faithful to the source material and has realised the world of the graphic novel with considerable skill and panache.<\/p>\n

The production design and visual look of the film are wonderful to look at (the opening credit sequence is particularly fantastic) and the performances, especially\u00a0Jackie Earle Haley<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Billy Crudup<\/a>, are good across the board.\u00a0<\/p>\n

There is also a strange thrill that comes from watching so many ‘unfilmable’ ideas appear on screen and Hollywood conventions broken: it runs to 2 hours and 40 minutes, has a sombre tone, keeps nearly all of the flashback material and – even for an 18\/R-rated film – contains quite brutal scenes of violence, rape and even full frontal nudity.<\/p>\n

None of it is excessively sadistic, like certain modern horror films<\/a>, but I have a feeling it may put audiences off.<\/p>\n

It is going to have a huge opening, but it will be interesting to see how it does in the long run at the box office.\u00a0<\/p>\n

I’m split on its prospects. Part of me thinks grosses will tail off after the initial fans and younger males eat it up over the next two weeks.<\/p>\n

But if a downbeat comic book movie like The Dark Knight<\/a> can do so well<\/a>, then maybe Watchmen has a good shot at dominating the March box office.<\/p>\n

Watchmen<\/em><\/strong> is out on Friday<\/em><\/p>\n

> Official UK site<\/a>
\n>\u00a0Find out more about the graphic novel at Wikipedia<\/a>
\n> Read about the lawsuit that threatened to delay the film’s release<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After years of thinking it would never reach the screen, I finally saw the film adaptation of Watchmen\u00a0last week. If you are unfamiliar with the source material, it explores what happens to a group of superheroes in an alternative 1985 in which Richard Nixon is a 5-term president and the world stands on the brink […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25,8],"tags":[363],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4986"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4986"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4986\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4986"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4986"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4986"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}