Watchmen
A complex, multi-layered mystery adventure, the film is set in an alternate 1985 America in which costumed superheroes are part of the fabric of everyday society, and the “Doomsday Clock” – which charts the USA’s tension with the Soviet Union – is permanently set at five minutes to midnight. When one of his former colleagues is murdered, the washed-up but no less determined masked vigilante Rorschach sets out to uncover a plot to kill and discredit all past and present superheroes. As he reconnects with his former crime-fighting legion – a ragtag group of retired superheroes, only one of whom has true powers – Rorschach glimpses a wide-ranging and disturbing conspiracy with links to their shared past and catastrophic consequences for the future. Their mission is to watch over humanity…but who is watching the Watchmen?--©Paramount Pictures.
3.1 out of 5 based on 13 reviews
|
Omniscore:
|
| Certificate |
|
| Genre |
Sci-Fi / Fantasy |
| Director |
Zack Snyder |
| Cast |
Billy Crudup, Jackie Earle Haley, Matthew Goode, Carla Gugino Malin Åkerman |
| Studio |
Paramount Pictures |
| Release Date |
March 2009 |
| Running Time |
163 minutes |
| |
A complex, multi-layered mystery adventure, the film is set in an alternate 1985 America in which costumed superheroes are part of the fabric of everyday society, and the “Doomsday Clock” – which charts the USA’s tension with the Soviet Union – is permanently set at five minutes to midnight. When one of his former colleagues is murdered, the washed-up but no less determined masked vigilante Rorschach sets out to uncover a plot to kill and discredit all past and present superheroes. As he reconnects with his former crime-fighting legion – a ragtag group of retired superheroes, only one of whom has true powers – Rorschach glimpses a wide-ranging and disturbing conspiracy with links to their shared past and catastrophic consequences for the future. Their mission is to watch over humanity…but who is watching the Watchmen?--©Paramount Pictures.
Visit official website
Watch the trailer
Reviews
The Mirror
Steve Anglesey
“...searing, spectacular and simply unmissable.”
24/02/2009
Read Full Review
Empire Magazine
Ian Nathan
“Okay, it isn’t the graphic novel, but Zack Snyder clearly gives a toss, creating a smart, stylish, decent adaptation, if low on accessibility for the non-convert.”
23/04/2009
Read Full Review
The Times
Kevin Maher
“The film that has emerged, however, is a mesmerising and brutalising experience, and will be, for some at least, more than worth the wait.”
24/02/2009
Read Full Review
Total Film
Jonathan Crocker
“Not just another superhero movie. Gripping onto sex, violence and angst, it’s hard to imagine anyone watching the Watchmen as faithfully as Zack Snyder’s heartfelt, stylised adap. Uncompromising, uncommercial and unique.”
24/02/2009
Read Full Review
Uncut Magazine
Nick Hasted
“Watchmen bravely grapples with big ideas more traditionally suited to high-end sci-fi. Alongside M. Night Shyamalan’s Unbreakable (2000), it’s a thoroughgoing attempt to deconstruct a genre Hollywood has happily swallowed whole.”
23/04/2009
Read Full Review
Variety
Justin Chang
“Fans of Alan Moore’s landmark graphic novel... will thrill to every pulpy line of dialogue and bloody act of retribution retained in director Zack Snyder’s slavishly faithful adaptation. But auds unfamiliar with Moore’s brilliantly bleak, psychologically subversive fiction may get lost amid all the sinewy exposition and multiple flashbacks.”
26/02/2009
Read Full Review
The Evening Standard
Derek Malcolm
“Unfortunately there is something about Snyder’s smart, polished work that’s too glib. If Watchmen the movie has a heart, I can’t discern it. The missing warmth is what stops Moore’s complex set of costumed heroes from moving us on film, even as we admire the often garish and frequently violent action set-pieces built around them.”
05/03/2009
Read Full Review
The Financial Times
Nigel Andrews
“We get a rollicking super-yarn, full of fun for all but three hours but lost to mind and memory, when over, in a similar timespan.”
04/03/2009
Read Full Review
The Los Angeles Times
Kenneth Turan
“There isn't a movie in his landmark graphic novel "Watchmen" -- at least not a really good one. What we get instead is something acceptable but pedestrian, an adaptation that is more a prisoner of its story than the master of it.”
05/03/2009
Read Full Review
Scotland on Sunday
Siobhan Synnot
“The strengths of the film are the strengths of Alan Moore: ingenious, psychologically resonant stories full of breathtaking images and set pieces. Watchmen isn't an empty husk like The Spirit or a cinderblock piece of myth-making like Dark Knight.”
01/03/2009
Read Full Review
Time Out
Tom Huddleston
“And yet, there’s something admirable about the entire enterprise: its ungainly size, its unrelenting weirdness, its willful, challenging intensity. Neophytes should probably steer clear, but for longterm fans of the source work this will be a hugely pleasurable, if ultimately unenlightening experience.”
05/03/2009
Read Full Review
Channel 4 Film
Matthew De Abaitua
“The makers, marketers and producers of Watchmen have worked so hard to keep this community happy that they have lost sight of what makes a film truly exciting: our emotional engagement with the characters and their story.”
23/04/2009
Read Full Review
The New Yorker
Anthony Lane
“Incoherent, overblown, and grimy with misogyny, “Watchmen” marks the final demolition of the comic strip, and it leaves you wondering: where did the comedy go?”
09/03/2009
Read Full Review