Watchmen A Movie Review	MPAA Rated - R It's 2:41 Long A Review by The Dude on the Right

And speaking of the story…

“Watchman” the movie is adapted from the graphic novel by Alan Moore, and directed by Mr. “300,” Zack Snyder.  In the movie you get some gratuitous violence, gratuitous sex, female and male nudity, a trip to Mars, and potential nuclear war.  It all sounds great, especially from an action stand-point, but a word of warning to you - as much as “Watchmen” is all of those things, it is a lot of talking, a lot of back-story, and, especially if you haven’t read the graphic novel, a lot of explanations that go on way-too long.  Yup, about ½ hour of action, violence, sex, and space travel with about two hours of back-story that only the fanboys and fangirls will probably love.

The year is around 1984/1985 and Richard Nixon is still President because he, with the help of Dr. Manhattan (Billy Crudup), helped end The Vietnam War.  The Watchmen enter the picture because they used to be this group of masked vigilantes, able to kick a lot of ass without any super-weapons and their only superpowers being their strength and their minds.  The problem is the Watchmen have been shut down, with only Dr. Manhattan able to save The United States, Dr. Manhattan being the result of a nuclear experiment with him trapped in the wrong place at the wrong time, who now is blue, able to teleport people (and himself) from location to location, and the good Dr. doesn’t need oxygen, nor seem to need sex anymore as his main squeeze, Silk Spectre II (Malin Akerman), loses interest in him as he becomes engrossed in his work, to help Ozymandias (Matthew Goode) develop an energy source to replace oil, gas, etc.

Okay, I’m sorry, I missed an important part, that The Comedian (Jeffrey Dean Morgan), one of the Watchmen, gets killed right at the beginning of the movie and Rorschach (Jackie Earle Haley) suspects that the Watchmen are being systematically eliminated, so he works to warn Silk Spectre II, Dr. Manhattan, Ozymandias, and Nite Owl II (Patrick Wilson). We’ve got people supposedly trying to get rid of the Watchmen, we’ve got the Russians testing the Americans leading the world to the brink of nuclear war, and you know what, we get a whole lot of storytelling that I didn’t really care about because quite frankly, for me, it was actually too much information.

Here’s the thing - No matter my take on the movie, I think it will hit you in one of three ways:  1) You will pretty much love it.  You will think it’s a 5 star flick that should have been longer and you can’t wait for “Watchmen: Part II.”  2) You will pretty much not love the movie.  You will think it is about 1 Star, is way too long, and just wish the Watchmen would have kicked a lot more ass.  3) You will want to see more of the dude with the big, blue dong.  So, I’m going to average the three together, and even though that warrants a 3 ½ stars out of 5 for “Watchmen,” I’m saying don’t let the trailers fool you because this is really a 2 hour political, ideological tale about human nature, with some quality kills and nudity thrown in for good measure.

That’s it for this one!  I’m The Dude on the Right!!  L8R!!!