Watchmen

View Date: 8/13/09

Watchmen is the movie adaptation of the eponymous graphic novel by Alan Moore. It is an alternate reality story in which costumed heroes exist and reap a vigilante justice throughout the country. The heroes are now retired due to a bill being passed by congress and mostly protecting their identities. However, someone is going around killing costumed heroes, and a group reunite to try to discover the plot.

Thankfully, I had read the book well prior to seeing this movie. I had a basic understanding of the story, which allowed me to connect the dots of points that were left out. Other people watching with me had not read the book and were quite lost throughout. This movie was also really long, which I did not realize the first night I tried watching this. At almost three hours, it took me two different sittings to watch.

That said, this review is not all negative. The movie itself was stunning visually. They did take many scenes directly from the book, providing them in action form rather than shot by shot. It did hold to the story as well as possible. I am grateful that I did not see it shortly after reading, because that way I could enjoy it for the movie it was rather than find the flaws that I know had to be there. With this being based on the graphic novel on which a movie could never be based, according to many reviews and critics, I thought it was a very well made adaptation.

10 words or less: Really long and somewhat hard to follow.