Watchmen fails to match super expectations
When it was published in 1988, Alan Moore's Watchmen was hailed as the coming-of-age of graphic novels.
Featuring a sophisticated writing style, muscular art and adult themes in an ironic inversion of the superhero genre, Watchmen was a conscious evolution from the previous generation of comics. Appearing the same year as Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns, Watchmen established Moore as a modern comics master and opened up a readership for more mature, literary graphic novels.
Watchmen has beaten a tortuous path to the screen, despite its popularity and critical acclaim. A battle over the movie rights delayed production and seemed like it would bar the film's release last summer.
But Moore hasn't been waiting on the edge of his seat to see his masterpiece hit the big screen: After disappointing renderings of his graphic novels From Hell and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Moore disowned the adaptation of his other landmark, V for Vendetta and denied any interest in the results of Zach Snyder's direction of the just-released Watchmen film.
Watchmen examines the fates of a band of former superheroes years after they were forced into retirement by a Congressional ban on masked vigilantism. (Sound a little like The Incredibles for adults?) The theme of nostalgia is, subtly and unsubtly, the star of this show, as the characters face what they believe to be pending nuclear holocaust in a Cold War that shows no signs of ending.
Watchmen presents an alternate reality in which the history of the 1960s, '70s and '80s is drastically shaken by the creation of Dr. Manhattan, a god-like superhuman with the ability to infinitely manipulate time and matter. But Dr. Manhattan isn't the formula to ending the arms race as some officials thought, and international tension escalates. Simultaneously, each former masked hero's microcosm is wracked by a series of mysterious murders that draws the old band together and reveals the haunting, sordid details of their past together.
Featuring a sophisticated writing style, muscular art and adult themes in an ironic inversion of the superhero genre, Watchmen was a conscious evolution from the previous generation of comics. Appearing the same year as Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns, Watchmen established Moore as a modern comics master and opened up a readership for more mature, literary graphic novels.
Watchmen has beaten a tortuous path to the screen, despite its popularity and critical acclaim. A battle over the movie rights delayed production and seemed like it would bar the film's release last summer.
But Moore hasn't been waiting on the edge of his seat to see his masterpiece hit the big screen: After disappointing renderings of his graphic novels From Hell and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Moore disowned the adaptation of his other landmark, V for Vendetta and denied any interest in the results of Zach Snyder's direction of the just-released Watchmen film.
Watchmen examines the fates of a band of former superheroes years after they were forced into retirement by a Congressional ban on masked vigilantism. (Sound a little like The Incredibles for adults?) The theme of nostalgia is, subtly and unsubtly, the star of this show, as the characters face what they believe to be pending nuclear holocaust in a Cold War that shows no signs of ending.
Watchmen presents an alternate reality in which the history of the 1960s, '70s and '80s is drastically shaken by the creation of Dr. Manhattan, a god-like superhuman with the ability to infinitely manipulate time and matter. But Dr. Manhattan isn't the formula to ending the arms race as some officials thought, and international tension escalates. Simultaneously, each former masked hero's microcosm is wracked by a series of mysterious murders that draws the old band together and reveals the haunting, sordid details of their past together.
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