The Film Code: Watchmen

Caution: This Might Contain Spoilers!

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This is a unique story among a comic series. This follows the story of masked hero's that fight to protect the people of a city. After a Keene Act was enacted, making all masked vigilante activity illegal, these six found themselves facing an early retirement. Each of them choose to do different things with retirement, and those choices have lead to this conclusion.

Okay, when I say this is unique to comic films/stories, I mean its unique. When this came out in 2009, film audience's weren't prepared for this. People who just watch films based off of comics weren't expecting this style. However, you can quickly pick up on the style of film during the opening credit sequence. This film, directed by Zack Snyder, takes a look at what society would be like if masked hero's existed, and how this would effect society as a whole during the turmoil in the 1980's; and more importantly how living the life of a vigilante would effect the individuals living such lives. This film also hits on several dark notes; like the idea that to save humanity it must face its own deformities. Another words this film is psychological, sociological, and philosophical as far as story goes. I haven't read the actual comic series, but from what I've heard it's loyal to the actual story until it reach's the ending. Humorously, fans of the comic series agree that the film ending fits with the story better, but they hate it because its not the exact comic ending. All the action sequences were shown in the commercials, and seemed to be unusual in the film. Like insert action here sort of thing. The individual characters are amazing, and show different side of various masked hero's.

There are several masked hero's mentioned in this film. They are mentioned and then quickly pushed aside. You can see them through the opening credit intro. Jackie Earle Haley performs the role of Rorschach. He does an amazing job playing a sociopath. Jeffrey Dean Morgan does amazing in the role of the Comedian/Edward Blake. He presents a character that you love to hate. Billy Crudup performs the role of Dr. Manhattan. He does an amazing job because of all of his subtleties in his acting. If you pay attention you can see the faint smiles, the shifting of the eyes, etc. Matthew Goode performs the role of Adrian Veidt/Ozymandias. He is truly unique as a character, and does a great job presenting this in his acting. He is a character driven by logic, and only logic. This is something rare among Hollywood characters. It is also rare that you'd find a logic character full of charisma. Finally, Malin Akerman performs the role of Laurie Jupiter/Silk Spectre II. She is a strong female character, but at the same time she is a slut. In the course of this film she fights and has sex. It's unfortunate that most strong female roles come off as butch, or as a slut. Anyway, she is still good in this film as an actress. Her, and her mother, present the idea of why women choose to dress sexy, and yet want to be seen as more than a sexual being. (There has to be a reason why female masked hero's dress in latex.)

The editing of this film isn't done to emphasize action. It instead emphasis story, and often times sex. Yes, there is plenty of sex featured in this film. The effect of Rorschach's mask is amazingly well done. It's subtle, and always changing to present different pictures. The visual effect of Dr. Manhattan is also well done aesthetically. The only troubling feature is that he never seems to be wearing a costume, and there is moments of full frontal nudity. I was honestly glade to see a man naked in a film instead of the commonplace woman. For some reason this just annoyed most audience's. The computer generated Ozymandias's genetically altered cat is awesome. It is obviously CGI, but its awesome. The only bad part is that "Bubastis" only appears once in this film with no actual explanation.

I give this film a 10 out of 10 stars! I know several would disagree, but I really enjoyed this film. I loved how it presented these varying ideals of philosophy, sociology, and psychology. True, they had to fit a lot of story within a 3 hour film, so it can be a bit overwhelming. There is also a lot of subtleties in the story that aren't picked up on the first timing watching the film.