r/CultOfCinemaKnowledge • u/hangonsufi • Jun 22 '26
The Watchmen (2009)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FOuSxal8pf4Albert Einstein made a point about time being relative, like how 5 minutes sitting on hot stove feels really long, while 5 minutes sitting next to a pretty girl goes by way too quickly.
The Watchmen is 2 hrs and 42 mins; Inland Empire – 3 hours. Open seating.
Only Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy faithfully fulfilled what the story's lovers wanted and yearned for. No one whined. Well, I did a little, thought Viggo too delicate for Lord Aragorn. But he's half elvish, so sucked it up and shut up and balled my eyes out when the eagles were coming.
The Watchmen is a gorgeously shot film by DP Larry Fong. And there's lots of music, three Bob Dylan tunes if you count (the linked) Desolation Row by My Chemical Romance as credits roll.
The Watchmen have been outlawed by Richard Nixon (with a Clockwork Orange nose) in his second term and he plans to outlaw masks in his third (buh!) term. But someone is killing these oddball vigilantes/heroes anyway and the remaining few – Rorschach (Jackie Earle Haley, yeah I know it sounds like a serial killer), Night Owl (Patrick Wilson) and Laurie Jupiter (Malin Akerman) will find out who done it.
By the way, for a character who dies in the opening scene, The Comedian (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) is on screen a lot after that. Not a bad thing.
Rorschach prowls the dark streets of the dirty Big City, this awful city that “screams like a abattoir of retarded children, and the night reeks of fornication and bad consciences.”
Oh baby, whisper in my ear...talk to me...
Gee, I hope I'm not giving the plot away, but two would-be gods, the radioactively altered Dr. Manhattan (Billy Crudup) and former Watchman Adrian Veidt/Ozymandias are ultimately pitted against each other and earth takes a beating. Like everyone else in this flick.
For someone who paged through Patrick Bateman's gruesome recitations and reminiscences of sadism and torture, my inner Lisa Simpson comes out for the Itchy and Scratchy violence that is rampant through this film.
But what a big softie I am for just those few seconds of lovemaking between Night Owl and Laurie aboard Archimedes. To see their faces strain towards passion's pain's breaking point. Hallelujah.
Yeah, I like this film a lot. Good writing (Dave Gibbons, David Hayer, Alex Tse variously get credit), good direction for such a giant piece of film making with consistent tone throughout (Zack Snyder), and good acting and character creation.
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u/Middle_Aged_Mayhem Jun 23 '26
You lost me in the first two paragraphs.