So last night the wife and I went to go see The Watchmen. I had seen the previews before and I thought it looked pretty good, I didn’t realize that it was a nearly 3 hour long film, but there was a ton of hype about it. Since I am personally not familiar with the Comic Book series or the Graphic Novels I went in fresh, the only thing I knew about the film was that it was about superhero’s and the possibilities of a nuclear war.

I don’t want to give too much away,  but the story spans from the last half of the 20th Century, it covers a lot of political changes and things, and the gist is this: Richard Nixon is elected for his 3rd term right at the beginning of the film–after repealing the term limits on the Presidency.  Dr. Manhattan is a blue superhero that can see his own future and past all in relative time, teleport himself, other people, and objects to other locations (including Mars), and split himself into multiple copies of himself (so that he can simultaneously make love to his girlfriend-who is very very hot- and work on his energy producing mechanism that is meant to save the world). So he is working on a project to help create an energy source that will, in his mind, save mankind from nuclear war and from destroying the earth—of course there are twists that I can’t tell you about.

Simultaneously the aging and formerly masked superhero The Comedian is  killed off by an unknown foe, Rorschach is the superhero that decides to investigate the killing, this leads him to eventually join back up with his former superhero partner Night Owl after he is broken out of prison, where all the villains he put away are located. Rorschach is an interesting study in human psychology, which I think is the strong point of this film, it has action scenes and all that jazz…but the emotions and interactions between the characters is actually what it is about. Rorschach is a grim character with a pungent distaste for flippant lifestyles, he tolerates the affairs of his counterparts but he obviously has a very hard time doing so.  Dr. Manhattan is losing touch with his humanity, mainly due to his changing understanding of time and the sense that something bad is about to happen..I don’t want to say anymore, but this is the glory of the film.

Another thing I really enjoyed was all of the political figures, Lee Iacocca, Richard Nixon etc.  Tons of political figures, too many to name, were in the film and all but Nixon looked similar to their real counterparts. Another favorite was Silk Spectre – she is absolutely gorgeous-nuff said. There were some very comedic parts as well, political references, sexual references,  and probably tons of references I didn’t even catch since I haven’t read any of the comics. Also, seeing the fashions of the 80’s on the screen was pretty funny, especially the gaudy superhero outfits and Spectre’s menagerie of earrings.

Overall, The Watchmen was a great film,  you don’t have to have read the previous comics or be a Watchman fan-boy to enjoy it.  The acting is incredibly solid, not the first complaint in that department, even though I have never heard of any of the actors in the film. The effects were strong and not overdone. The insight into Rorschach’s mindset was very interesting and a great insight into the human psyche. Did I mention the penis? Yes, lots of penis…big, floppy, blue, glowing penis…sometimes the penis was distracting during the dialog…It was hard to listen when there was this big superhero knee-knocker phallus in the way and female members of the audience were…audibly aroused as the sight of this thing…but it doesn’t ruin the movie.

Go watch it…and Stumble, Digg, and Mixx this post PLEASE!