Watchmen

This movie starts out with The Comedian (Jeffery Dean Morgan) getting killed. I have to admit the fight scene was awesome and the music was the perfect choice. Excellent opening for a movie. It kind of falls apart after that. Following The Comedian dying there are the opening credits for the film and as we watch the names of the director and whatnot we are shown bits of the lives of the Minute Men, an organization of superheroes.  Blah, blah, blah. 

The only one really interested in The Comedian's death is Rorschach (Jackie Earl Haley). He was the only one who refused to take his mask off when the government passed a law banning superheroes. Believing someone is after heroes, he goes to warn Night Owl aka Dan Dreiburg (Patrick Wilson), his former partner. Dan thinks he's paranoid but goes and talks to Ozymandias aka Adrian Veidt (Matthew Goode), the only one of the Watchmen who revealed his secret identity and has become rich and famous. He is also a genius and is working on a new form of free energy.

Rorschach on the other hand goes to visit Silk Spectre and Dr. Manhattan aka Laurie Jupiter and John Osterman (Malin Akerman and Billy Crudup). John is actually only one with superpowers because he was caught in an experiment and was torn atom from atom but was able to rebuild himself. Now he glows blue, can deconstruct stuff, teleport, and see his own past and future. He is also full frontal for most of the movie. John is also helping Adrian with his free energy project.

At Edward Blake , The Comedian's,  funeral, they all have flashbacks about Edward and show how much of a jerk he was. Laurie goes to visit her mother Sally (Carla Gugino) the original Silk Spectre and she also has a flashback about Edward and I am completely sick of flashbacks at this point.

As Rorschach continues his investigation Laurie breaks up with John and runs to Dan and the two of them play dress up and fight crime for a bit, remembering the good old days; John has a flashback about how he was created and is accused of giving everyone near him cancer, so he leaves for Mars; Adrian continues his project and gets attacked but easily defeats the bad guy. I am curious why they say John is the only one with powers considering how fast Adrian is and later on he actually catches a bullet in his hand. If that isn't a superpower I don't know what is. Anyway, Rorschach is framed for murder and goes to jail with a ton of people he helped put away. Laurie and Dan go rescue him and then Laurie is brought to Mars with John and Rorschach and Night Owl realize that there is something up and they discover that Ozymandias is behind it. He framed Rorschach, killed The Comedian and gave a bunch of people around John cancer all so that he can save the world.

They try to stop him but they are too late, and so are Laurie and John. It turns out that Adrian's "free energy" was a weapon to destroy a bunch of cities all around the world and blame Dr. Manhattan so the world would come together and stop him.  John realizes that this is the only way to stop the rising tensions between the US and USSR and agrees to go along with the plan, but Rorschach balks and refuses to compromise and wants to tell the world, so John kills him and then leaves Earth.

There was another scene after that but it was stupid and pointless; the only thing that matters is that they start cleaning up the corrupt streets and some journalist finds Rorschach's journal. And that was three hours of my life I want back. Now I have not read the graphic novel, so I went into the movie knowing nothing and judging the movie for what it was. And what is was, was crap. It was long and boring and there were so many pointless flashbacks, and I hate flashbacks. Unless they reveal something that drastically alters a character or the plot  then I can see no valid reason for using them. There was even a point during the movie where the plot actually comes to a standstill. When they throw Rorschach in jail none of the other characters are trying to find out who killed Edward so everything comes to a stop while Laurie and Dan finish having sex long enough to get him out of jail.

That's another thing that bothered me, I really don't know why there are sex scenes during movies. If they are vital to the plot then fine, keep them in the movie, but if they are there just for the sake of having sex scenes, then they just waste time. This movie was bloated and slow moving enough that it didn't need them in, especially considering that Laurie was supposed to be 17 (I think) and she was involved in all of the sex in the film.

The only good things about this movie that I likes was the fight scene at the beginning and the fact that the bad guy won. That's it. I have nothing else to say about this. It was too bad because most of the acting wasn't terrible. 

Grade: 5/10