Watchmen (Director's Cut) – Blu-ray Review - CLIPS ADDED!

By Jeff Swindoll Jul 20, 2009, 18:51 GMT

Someone’s killing our super heroes. The year is 1985 and super heroes have banded together to respond to the murder of one of their own. They soon uncover a sinister plot that puts all of humanity in grave danger. The super heroes fight to stop the impending doom only to find themselves a target for annihilation. But, if our super heroes are gone, who will save us? ...more

Who watches the Watchmen?  Obviously, not enough folks to make it a massive hit.  I’d imagine that Alan Moore is laughing somewhere since he opposes film adaptations of his work.  The project has been in the works for over twenty years (which spawned some lawsuits) and now that it’s finally out what’s it all about?

It’s 1985 and in an alternate universe where Richard M. Nixon (Robert Wisden) is still president.  Tricky Dick was able to win Vietnam thanks to a lab accident that created the superhuman Dr. Manhattan (Billy Crudup).  This universe also features costumed superheroes, aka “masks,” which fight crime.

Dr. Manhattan is the first to actually have superpowers thanks to his atoms being scattered and him having the willpower, and the watchmaker background, to reassemble them into a glowing, blue body. 

In the present, only The Comedian (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) is still active because he too works for the government, who with the Keene Act outlawed masked vigilantes.  There’s also an unsanctioned, vigilante superhero called Rorschach (Jackie Earle Haley) who prowls the city still. 

The original Nite Owl was Hollis Mason (Stephen McHattie) who retired and wrote a tell-all book and passed his wings onto Dan Dreiberg (Patrick Wilson) who was retired by the Keene Act, but the two still get together for drinks and to hash over old times. 

Another hero from the old days is Sally Jupiter (Carla Gugino) aka the Silk Spectre,  she’s retired but her daughter Laurie (Malin Akerman) took over for her until the Keene Act, but Laurie is also the girlfriend of Dr. Manhattan. 

Adrian Veidt, aka Ozymandias, is probably the most successful retiree since he’s considered the world’s smartest man and has funneled that intelligence into a worldwide corporation. 

When a man is thrown from his high-rise apartment, Rorschach discovers that the deceased is the Comedian and that even greater forces are at play.  

Watchmen is perhaps known as THE graphic novel.  It’s the first to get serious attention from the media, which thought that comics were more a kid’s game.  It’s been a movie project since 1986 and had long been a geek’s fantasy to see it on the silver screen.  It’s finally arrived, but not without birthing pains. 

Some lawsuits between Fox and Warner Brothers seemed to cast a pall over the film as it might not be released when Warner said it would.  Those issues finally got settled and the film hit theaters, but it was not the hit that was envisioned.

Technically, it made its production costs back (130 million), but the Hollywood definition of a hit is to make double its production costs to be considered a financial success. 

Director Zack Snyder seemed to be slavishly devoted to the source material and has fashioned a living comic.  He did change the ending, for those who know, but I thought the change didn’t affect the film negatively in the way that some rabid geeks foamed about. 

The film is not without some problems in other avenues.  For example, some of the scenes might be faithful to the source material, but elicit more laughs than thrills.  Yes, I’m talking about the sex scene in Nite Owl’s ship to the tune of “Hallelujah.”  I didn’t shout hallelujah. 

There’s also the villain, who I’ll dub Baron von Lethargy as not to spoil it for you. Baron von Lethargy’s plot is an intriguing one, to save mankind by killing a large portion of it, but the actor playing him does not imbibe the character with any emotion or “character.” 

When you’re doing such a comic book film you need to make your villain memorable, Watchmen really doesn’t. 

The makeup also runs hot and cold since some looks very good and some looks too cartoonish.  The “real life” characters like Nixon and other celebrities suffer the most from the cartoon look and it pulled me out of the film too often.  These appearances are more caricatures than full characters, though I’ll admit that they do recreate the look of the comic.

Okay, I’ve told you my problems, but what did I like?  The casting is spot on in most cases, well except for Baron von Lethargy. 

A stand out is Jackie Earle Haley as fan favorite Rorschach as well as Jeffrey Dean Morgan as the Comedian.  The computer special effects are also top notch and recreate the landscape of the world of the Watchmen to perfection.  The story is also there; even if the squid is missing it didn’t hurt it, and has all the majesty of the comic. 

The good outweighs the stuff that doesn’t work (for me at least), but I wish that Snyder would’ve put more of his own mark on it instead of following the comic so closely. 

What cannot be argued is that Warner Brothers has provided an excellent Blu-ray, with a more comprehensive special edition to be in stores for Christmas.  This edition features 24 more minutes of footage not show in the theatrical cut.  

Watchmen is presented in a 1080p high definition transfer (2.39:1).  Special features are abundant and in high definition.

Disc one includes “maximum movie mode” hosted by Snyder that offers a picture-in-picture presentation, meaning you’ll need a profile 1.1 player, with a wealth of making of information.  You can also access some of the “focus points” of this mode separately (36 minutes of mini-documentaries).  The disc is also BD-Live enhanced. 

Disc two contains the 29 minute “The Phenomenon: the Comic that changed Comics” focusing on the origin and released of the graphic novel.  The 26 minute “Real Superheroes: Real Vigilantes” about the history of vigilantism.  The 17 minute “Mechanics: Technologies of a fantastic world” looks at the care that was put in the fantasy technologies of the film’s world.  You also get a 3 minute “Desolation Row” music video by Chemical Romance. 

Disc three is a digital copy (of the theatrical cut) of the film for your PC or portable device.  

I greatly enjoyed the graphic novel and the film (I’d give it four stars) and the Blu-ray adds some great special features.  There’s a more expansive edition coming out in December, so you’ll have to decide if you want to wait.

I wished that you could’ve had both cuts on this release, but was happy with the director’s cut, even though there were some problems with the film – the good outweighed those problems.  

Watchmen (Director's Cut) [Blu-ray] is now available at Amazon. Visit the DVD database for more information.

CLIPS FROM THE FILM: