Present Tense: The Watchmen (2009)

The Film: Watchmen (Warner Brothers, 2009). Directed by Zack Snyder. Screenplay by David Hayter and Alex Tse (based on the limited run graphic novels by Alan Moore, illustraed by Dave Gibbons). Starring Malin Akerman, Billy Crudup, Matthew Goode, Jackie Earl Haley, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Patrick Wilson. Running time: 162 minutes. 

The Quick and Dirty: A confused movie that bombards you with images, Watchmen is a sprawling buffet with just about every dish imaginable. It's a superhero movie. It's a love story. It's a feast for the eyes. It's a nihilistic urban drama. It takes recent American history and morphs it into an alternative universe where presidential term limits have been repealed, Richard Nixon is elected four or five times as president, the United States and the USSR are on the verge of annihilating one another, and Ronald Reagan is contemplating a run for the presidency in 1988. This alternate historical universe just adds to the confusion. It's set in New York City in 1985, where -- for some reason -- it is raining nearly all of the time. The superheroes -- all caricatures -- are more like psychological case studies than movie inhabitants. The film uses the jarring CGI pioneered by Sin City (and used again in director Zack Synder's overwrought Spartan epic 300). The superheroes are flat. Even the edgiest one, Jackie Earle Haley's bloodthirsty Rorschach, seems like the sort of role that Clint Eastwood might've been asked to play if he were 30 years younger. Rorschach talks in a guttural Eastwood whisper, but his vigilantism lacks the kick-assiness of Dirty Harry's urban outings. Sadly, he's the most compelling of the lot. The other superheroes are cardboard cutouts. And the confusing plot merely undermines the finished product. Still, after all that dissing, it is impossible to deny that there are some brilliant visuals and some masterfully handled scenes in Watchmen. 

Why I Didn't Dig It: Scanning the Blogosphere, the consensus among hardcore Watchmen fans is that the movie is not as good as the original 12-issue comic book series from 1986-87. There seems to be some agreement that it's a good idea to read those first. But it's hard to see how they could save this visually stunning but ultimately shallow movie. 

Parting Shot: Batman Begins (2005), The Dark Knight (2008) and Iron Man (2008) have raised the bar incredibly high for superhero movies. Watchmen can't possibly compete with that outstanding trio. But it sure beats the hell out of Daredevil, Ghost Rider, Catwoman, Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, and the list goes on and on and on... Grade: C+.