This ain’t The Superfriends, people! But I do have my own Wonder Twins:
Local contractor/surf buddy, Ben Ewart (Shape of a Skil Saw!!) and
Illustrator/Comic Book Uber-Geek pal, Scott Anderson (Form of a Wacom Tablet!!).
We teamed up for a night of nihilistic vigilantism and boy did we get it!

Watchmen has long been considered one of the best comic books/graphic novels by people that consider such things. Most of those people also consider it unfilmable. It’s too dense and too detailed to adequately capture on film.  Scott loaned me his super collector edition of Watchmen (nerd) so I could see what all the hubbub was about. It was hard bound and lovely.  Almost as nice as my 50th Anniversary Edition of The Lord of the Rings!

Watchmen is a tale of costumed vigilantes in New York circa 50′s to 80′s. None have super powers, all are humans.  Flawed humans.

An accident causes a scientist to disintegrate but he’s eventually able to manifest himself as a hairless, glowing, blue, naked version of himself.  He’s labeled Dr. Manhattan.  He’s fairly omnipotent and can teleport and disintegrate whatever he wants.  He can also multiply himself.  Which begs the deeper question: Did they show his Navy Nards or his Periwinkle Privates or his Turquoise Tater-Tots and how many times? Let’s just say that it reminded me of that “Smurf Themed” movie I happened upon while channel surfing the other night. Actually, all Azure Assets aside, the story did pose some deep questions about how the world would respond to a being who was that powerful.  The film didn’t paint it with sunshine and roses like most American movies, but that’s OK. I guess I won’t get my kids the Watchmen lunch box.

So, did it live up to the book?  I think it did, visually.  There were many moments that felt like they were right out of the book. Scott, who knows way more about this stuff, said it failed to live up to the book since it was only 2.5 hours long.  His sense was that 12 hours would maybe get closer. I think it turned out about as good as it could have considering the context of the medium and the film business.

I did NOT hate it! But you might.

PS – Click on the poster and see if you can find Scott, Ben and me:)

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