Watchmen review

After all the posters and trailers I put up for Watchmen, I thought I had better at least mention my thoughts on the it now I have seen it. I saw it on IMAX when I was last down in London......and it rocked!!

Not having read the graphic novel meant I had no preconceptions of what to expect. I personally loved it! It is a dark and adult story squarely set in the Cold War (which I am old enough to still remember very clearly). In fact Harrogate is one of the First Strike areas in the UK, thanks to one of the US's major Northern Hemisphere listening stations being only 7 miles from my house called Menwith Hill. In an attack Menwith Hill would be taken out straight away as it can listen to signals from all around the world. A sobering thought to a child.

So I loved and recognised the air of doom and inevitability that runs all the way through the film of an approaching nuclear Armageddon. It is a film about superheroes that firmly grounds them in a reality. They're all sociopaths and psychos in it. Dastardly plans for mass murder are discovered and attempted to be thwarted. The film looks very much at the dark side of the human experience.

And it looks great!! Abd especially on a 30 foot high IMAX screen. Cutting edge SFX and a kick-ass soundtrack as well. In fact I have been so taken with the film that I have since read the graphic novel, and although comic books are not a medium that particually enjoy, I can say that I appriciate the balls the book had in the first place; and I can see how it earned its name as "The Greatest Comic Book Ever Written".

It is acted to perfection, with 2 actors - Jackie Earle Haley as Rorschach and Jeffrey Dean Morgan as The Comedian being truly amazing. I loved this film and can't wait to have it in my collection (in High Def, of course). Zack Snyder, the director is a new class act (after 300 and Dawn of the Dead). Can't wait to see what he does next.