After a couple of years of constant waiting by every comic-book geek in the world, the ultimate comic-book movie was finally released. Watchmen isn’t the ultimate comic-book in general popularity or in sales but is a contender among the fans of comic b00ks, the people that actually go to comic book stores on a regular basis instead of relying on Barnes & Noble for their graphic novels.
Watchmen picks up directly where 300 left off in terms of style and visually stunning slo-mo scenes. A solid cast without any superstars ensures that there are no strange distractions (like Brad Pitt as Dr. Manhattan; too weird). The opening montage stretches the movie to be a little longer but also serves to establish the alternative reality that we’re about to spend 165 minutes in.
Although filled with the occasional over-the-top sex and violence, Watchmen is an entertaining, yet very different superhero film that explores what vigilantes dressing in costumes without supernatural powers might evolve into. There are no Lawful Good Superman characters. Each character brings his and her own problems, neuroses, and issues with them. Some are driven mad, others are driven to despair. It is Rorschach that falls permanantly into his masked persona. While the Scarecrow demands his mask in the Batman movie, it is Rorschach who freaks out without his alter ego.
The dilemnas that the characters face at the end of the story are the most interesting part of the movie. Can you truly justify the murder of millions of people? Do the ends justify the means? In the context of this movie, it is ironically the fictionalized versions of real people that are the most cartoonish. Both Richard Nixon and Lee Iacocca among others make appearances in the film. With these super villians running the country, industry, and the world, the extreme actions that the Watchmen take can be justified. But is the case in the real world?
If the general populace of the world chooses to make the most evil and destructive among us into our world leaders, than the only was to save the people of the world from ourselves is to force us all to get along. The creators of this story seem to have a very low view of people in general and the leaders that we elect. The story suggests that it is inevitable that we will destroy ourselves through war, pollution, or nuclear devastation. Therefore, killing a few million innocents to force the rest of us to unite against a common foe is a justifiable plan to save us all. After all, it’s just a few million of the same
The problem, of course, is that our leaders are not as evil and cartoonish as they are portrayed in this alternate universe. Despite the constant and overwhelming exaggeration of the threat of nuclear war in the 1980′s, Reagan’s policies did not result in the inevitable confrontation that the elite predicted, but in the end of the Cold War and the peaceful destruction of the Soviet Union. The doom and gloom of the elite prognosticators is never as bad as they say, and the conservative and liberal leaders of the world are rarely as bad as their opponents would like to make them.
The idea of destroying cities around the world to unite the world in peace may appeal to some self-appointed elite of society but is a terrible evil when considered for the real world.