Rorschach

I really don’t say this very often about films, but Watchmen is fucking awesome. It is hands down one of the best films I have seen – it flawlessly copies sections of the original graphic novel to the extent that it literally gives you a sense of déjà vu.

The first half  of the film is fantastic, it follows the plot of the graphic novel nearly to the letter and recreates a number of scenes with astounding attention to detail, however the second half the film does begin to wobble a little as important plot details end up on the cutting room floor. The ending, I thought, was quite good, even though it had been totally re-written for the film version.

One thing that struck me was that Watchmen contains a brutal rape scene, plenty of high-detail gore and Dr Manhattan’s big blue dick yet the word “Sperm” from the original is replaced by “Cells” during the scene on Mars where Jon decides that human life is actually interesting. The rest of the dialog in that scene is identical to the graphic novel. What gives?

At 162 minutes (plus adverts, trailers and sodding FACT warnings) Watchmen is a bladder-buster in the extreme but it does keep you amused. Personally I wanted it to be longer and I felt that a lot of the character development and back story from the novel was missing, however I can understand the necessity to keep the film under a certain length. I’m hoping there will be an uncut collectors edition coming out on DVD.

The opening credits are fantastic and the film stays true (mostly) to the original graphic novel. Thoroughly entertaining and generally well structured throughout even if you haven’t read the original however if you have read the graphic novel you will wonder where some of the storyline has gone.

Seriously, even if you have to sell somebody else’s child into slavery: go and see this film!

Here are the (far more epic than they sound) opening credits…

Thanks to Oscar J. Baeza for the picture.