Watchmen is one of the best films of 2009.
It’s challenging, subversive, fascinating.
Watchmen, the comic book was a revelation in its time.
CL
It took a part of our culture (superheroes through comic books) and perfectly dissected it.
And yet Rorschach is the perfect distillation of elements that go into The Punisher and Batman.
Dr. Manhattan is the god figure/ the superpowered being (like Superman, etc.
), but the ultimate extension of that is that he becomes removed from society.
And Laurie/Silk Spectre represents the female characters of comic books, partly defined by her love interests.
And that’s just scraping the surface of the book.
He of the stylish but somewhat vacuous enetertainments Dawn of the Dead and 300.
They had a right to be, but what Snyder did was try and be as faithful as possible.
As such, he can’t quite pull off the complete deconstruction.
And so the film has that polished sheen, but does not offer the same brechtian distance.
The story is nearly identical.
He thinks there’s a mask killer on the loose.
But Richard Nixon banned masks so only Rorschach is still on the prowl.
By 1985 Nixon is in his fifth term, and the Russians seem close to wanting to go nuclear.
Such sends Laurie and Dan into each other’s arms, and into their costumes.
But the change is perfect.
And here I enter spoiler territory.
By doing so, Ozy creates a God to keep the natives passive.
This a wonderfully preserve twist on the idea of the ubermensch, while also something of an anti-theist screed.
All the addendums are fine, but none were missed in the end.
Warner’s Blu-ray release comes in English.
5.1 DTS-HD and widescreen (2.35:1).
The transfer is amazing, as to be expected.
talks to the real-world phenomenon of people looking to protect themselves.
The piece comes out more on the side of cops than would-be superheroes.
“Mechanics: Technologies of a Fantastic World” (17 min.)
Also included is the My Chemical Romance video for Desolation Row.
Disc three offers a digital copy.
