Watchmen
2-Disc Special Edition
The Director's CutTrailer Watchmen is one of those books that I've known about for years and had every intention of reading, but never getting around to doing just that. I've always heard people raving about how this particular story and characters reinvented the Superhero Genre and how it turned the genre on it's head. Fast-forward to the movie getting made. Fast-forward to the DVD being released. I still haven't seen it. Just never had the time. I actually made the effort 2 years ago and put a hold at my
Library for my copy, only to get a f*cked up, non playable disc. I took it back, complained and then just never bothered to get another copy since that was the only copy they had. It wasn't until I saw the
Batman V Superman Comic Con Trailer did I decide to check out
Watchmen. It was actually more about wanting to see
Zack Snyder's other Superhero flick that isn't
Man of Steel to gauge what
BvS would and could be.
Having just watched
Watchmen (see what I did there
), I can see what
BvS could be stylistically on the visual end of things. But content-wise, it will never replicate what we get here for obvious reasons. I now understand why the comic book itself is so revered and how it completely changed what the medium was when it came out in the mid-80's. I didn't have a clue that this film would be a Hard-R. So much blood. It lives up to the name "Graphic Novel" given how bloody this is at times. Sawed-off arms, Shotgunned faces, and Axe-Splitting-heads will surely make people noticed that this isn't your Grandmother's Superhero song and dance. Throw in Sex scenes and the full monty and you've really changed the game here. I love comic book movies but in spite of being a fan of the genre, even I can admit that they are all full of the standard cliches that come with it. From
Superman The Movie to
The Avengers, they follow a formula for a reason.
With
Watchmen, this isn't the typical Superhero flick. First off, it's a straight up murder mystery that uses the backdrop of retired Superhero's to solve said mystery. Add in the fact that these Heroes are f*cked up one way or another with the same problems that everyone else has and you've got something very unique story-wise. I was fully engaged from start to finish coming away with
Rorschach as being my favorite character of the bunch because he's the most f*cked up one there is which serves up some truly memorable scenes. I've always been a fan of
Jackie Earle Haley and he absolutely steals the movie. But as much as I enjoyed the movie, it's not without faults. For starters, I did have issues with the voice of
Rorschach. You can't listen to him talk and not be reminded of
Christian Bale's Batman voice. They are too similar to one another, intentional or not, it's distracting. The other thing I didn't like was the pacing at times. Anytime that
Dr. Manhattan is on screen, it slows down dramatically. Other than those two things, I'm still a fan of
Watchmen and highly recommend this as a
Rent. I actually intend to see if I can find a sweet deal on
eBay for the
4-Disc Special Edition. This
Director's Cut that I watched clocked in at 3 hours. I can only imagine what else they have on the DVD for the 4-Disc version.