Watchmen

Spanks - 5

Director - Zack Snyder

Writers - David Hayter & Alex Tse

Starring - Malin Akerman, Billy Crudup, Matthew Goode, Jackie Earle Haley, Jeffrey Dean Morgan & Patrick Wilson

Release Date - 6 March 09

MPAA Rating - R

The long awaited film adaptation of of the "unfilmable" Watchmen is out and it was done brilliantly. Based on Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons graphic novel that Time named as one of the 100 greatest novels of all time. The story is set in an alternate 1985 at the height of the cold war and Richard Nixon is still the president. Masked heroes have existed since the 1940's , until it became illegal in the 1970's. The film starts with the murder of Edward Blake. Rorschach, a vigilante who doesn't care its illegal, finds out Blake was an ex masked hero that now works for the government who called himself The Comedian. Rorschach believes someone is picking off masked heroes and sets out to warn the other retired masked heroes.

The film is left mostly unchanged from the graphic novel, which is great because endings and settings are almost always changed when adapting a book and its always for the worst. It is being reported that he changed the ending, but the only thing changed was the MacGuffin that makes the ending work. Zac Snyder left out some of the smaller sub plots but filmed them all for DVD (the film would have been over three and a half hours long) but without them the story is complete.

If you read the graphic novel first you will see Easter eggs in a lot of scenes that viewers who didn't read will not notice. This to me shows how much Snyder cared for the source material and didn't just make the movie for the paycheck.

The film is not your normal superhero movie. If you go expecting Spiderman or Superman you are going to hate it. Go in with an open mind and you will enjoy it.