WATCHMEN

"WHO WATCHES THE WATCHMEN?..."

Comic books are an interesting medium.  They straddle between the the mental literary playground of novels and the visual audio feast of the movies.  It was only when writers embraced this, that they were able to finally reach its potential.  Although they started out as something of a form of entertainment for children, they have quickly evolved into a vehicle for telling mature, relevant and entertaining stories.

And one of the pioneering volumes for this cause is Alan Moore's Watchmen.

Seen by many as THE greatest superhero story ever told, Watchmen was able to capture everything that made superhero comics what they were and then flip it to make it completely different and original than anything superhero story that you've ever read.

What Alan Moore did was this:  he made superheroes BELIEVABLE.

Practically every comic book superhero up to that point all had superpowers; only knocked out and captured their arch-enemies, never killing them; had no sexual relations; never swore; didn't do drugs or drank; they always lived by a strict moral code; they all had perfect bodies.

It was all very PG.

In Watchmen, heroes killed, maimed and cut villain's fingers off; they had sex; they swore and yelled at each other; lied, cheated and stole; some were fat and overweight.

They were REAL.

You felt that the way they reacted to situations was exactly how any sane normal person would.  In fact, no one has ANY real superpowers except for one character.  All these people dress up and fight crime as REGULAR people.  Sure they have special gadgets and technology, but they don't have heat vision or cannot turn invisible.

Another landmark trait of Watchmen was the way the story was structured and the way in which Moore revealed the information to us.  It has so many layers of depth, that multiple read-throughs is almost a requirement, as you will miss a lot the first time around.  Everything has their place and just fits.

He perfectly captured what everyone was feeling in the era when the book was written, which was the mid 80's.  Paranoia about the Cold War and nuclear proliferation was thick in the air, and it factors heavily into the politics of the book.

Now, the movie version has finally arrived.

Unlike most other comic book properties, Watchmen went through a long period of development hell.  It was called "unfilmable", as the amount of character and story would be lost in the time limit of a motion picture.

Well, director Zack Snyder has done it.

Not only did he manage to fit the story into a 3-hour period, he was able to get the essence and mood of the book perfectly.  Everything from the costume, set design and lighting of the movie are exactly off the pages of the graphic novel.

And the story still made sense.  All the political turmoil of that era in the 1980's was captured.  And if you've already read the original, there are many subtle scenes and events that happen that are not fully explained to the audience but that the veteran reader would understand.

Overall, Zack Snyder has succeeded in bringing the rich canvas that is Watchmen from the static medium of a graphic novel, to the reality of motion picture.

Alan Moore, who's previous works have all been bastardized and butchered from making the transition to the big screen, should definitely shake Zack Snyder's hand for staying so true to the source material and watch the Watchmen.