Apparently all of America saw the trailer for the spring 2009 release of The Watchmen prior to The Dark Knight this weekend, except for me. I got to the theater after it was already shown but fortunately, I'd already seen it online. Some of you may not know what The Watchmen is so allow me to enlighten you. The Watchmen is an award winning graphic novel from the late 1980's depicting dilapidated superheroes living in the shadows of the Cold War. In this alternate history, superheroes are commonplace but the public is weary of their perceived vigilante tactics. The Doomsday Clock is set at 5 minutes to midnight and this group is about to come out of retirement to solve the murder mystery of one of their own. These are not the goody-two shoes heroes who always take the high ground. They're more like a posse of misfits with various neuroses, plagued by ethical and moral dilemmas. Are you impressed yet? I read this novel for my Media Criticism class in college and wrote a paper about its underlying theme depicting the American Monomyth. Who says you never use what you learned in school? ;)
Now director Zach Snyder is turning The Watchmen into a full blown movie and from the trailer, it's breathtaking. I'm not familiar with any of the actors but I think that's a positive. The special effects look amazing and the characters appear spot-on from their depictions in the comic. If the movie keeps to the plot of the novel and allows the themes of authority, social opposition, and moral relativism to develop, it should be a winner. I hope this will be a thinking person's movie; just like the novel encouraged the reader to question certain ideals and notions, so should the movie encourage the viewer to leave with a greater perspective of human nature and the forces both heroic and villainous in us all.
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