Movie Review- "Watchmen"

I actually saw this film twice in as many days. The story behind these multiple viewings is that I saw it on Friday, the day it officially opened. I took in an early afternoon show. The problem was, there was bad sound in the theater for the first half hour or so. I did the best I could to figure out what was going on. I followed the action, but the dialogue certainly would have helped. Anyway, a guy about 3 rows back decided he had had enough, so he walked out. Shortly after this, the sound was restored permanently. His loss. Anyway, after the film was over, there was some sort of assistant manager giving away free passes to everyone because of the sound issues. So,I took it, and saw it again the next day, with my buddy Tom and his family. There were no sound issues on the second viewing.

I told you that story so I could tell you this one.

This film warranted multiple screenings. I found it to be utterly fascinating. The film has dazzling visuals, strong performances, and raised a plethora of issues, which I will touch on later.

The central plot of the film centers on a team of superheroes, which is in s state of quasi-retirement/disarray in 1985. One member of the team, an aging hero called The Comedian, is attacked and thrown out of his high-rise apartment window. This is discovered by another member of the team, a masked avenger called Rohrschack, who believes that, due to the current political/social climate, someone is trying to kill superheroes. The rest of the film centers on him trying to convince the other semi-retired team members to reunite and stop whoever is doing this.

This is a powerful superhero film. Not necessarily powerful in the way that "The Dark Knight" was, but powerful nonetheless. It raises some very pertinent issues. Some of the themes which the film addresses are power and it's limits, heroism, the need for heroes, peace and how to achieve it, as well as others. Any of those would stimulate great discussion.

One very interesting aspect of the film is the soundtrack. The film has songs from the likes of Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen, My Chemical Romance, and more. Not since "Pulp Fiction" has a soundtrack meshed so well with the story on the screen. See this movie for that, if nothing else. This aspect ratchets up the discussion factor too.

The "That Guy" factor has a couple of interesting twists as well. The first "that guy" is Jackie Earle Haley. he was that one kid from the original "Bad News Bears". That's pretty standard. Here's where the twist comes in: One of the "that guys" is a familiar voice, more than face. It's retired supervillain, Moloch the Mystic, played by Matt Frewer. Frewer plays a supervillain called The Leader in the Hulk cartoon I posted on earlier in the year. Nice to match a voice with a face.

I loved this movie! But, then again, I'm a sucker for anyone in a cape.

Acting: A
Directing: A
That Guy: A
Overall: A