The most celebrated graphic novel (comic-book mini-series) of all time has now been brought to the screen and fans have no reason to be disappointed with the translation.
Warning - spoilers!
It's been almost a decade since I read Watchmen, so watching the movie really was like experiencing the amazing story for the first time.
Set in an alternate 1985, Richard Nixon is enjoying his third term as President of the USA, the Cold War with the USSR is the major preoccupation of Americans and the glory days of costumed vigilantes have been brought to a close by a government crackdown leaving super heroes like the Watchmen on the fringe or in retirement.
It is the demise of a 1940s-era super hero, the Comedian, which leads the ink-blot, mask-wearing Watchmen named Rorschach to investigate who might be murdering former costumed crime fighters. The inquiry brings several of the old Watchmen back together as they are slowly convinced by Rorschach that this is a matter worth pursuing.
However, it is the existence of former Watchmen member Dr Manhattan, a human atomic bomb, which creates the film's greatest intrigue and links the seemingly unbelievable world of super heroes with the all too believable world of Cold War-era international tension.
Dr Manhattan is the USA's one certain defence against any USSR nuclear aggression. The result of a nuclear experiment gone wrong (which bears more than a resemblance to the Incredible Hulk's origin story) Dr Manhattan is a scientist who has now obtained the power to control all matter, thereby averting any incoming attack, the ability to see the past and the future and the ability to change his form and teleport.
Although Dr Manhattan is one of the 'good guys', his accident has done more than merely transform him physically. His quasi-omniscience and the ability to experience the passage of time objectively rather than relatively (as all living beings do) give him a God-like perspective on humanity and their history. However, Dr Manhattan unwittingly becomes the patsy in a plot by an evil genius. The villain uses Dr Manhattan's powers in a way that cause him to become a destructive rather than a protective force. The USA and USSR now see that their greatest enemy is not in fact each other, but Dr Manhattan, thereby uniting them and creating 'world peace'.
When the Watchmen realise that such a horrendous act has been committed to manufacture world peace, only one member of the group is willing to cry 'foul' and he is quickly neutralised. That the other Watchmen are complicit in a lie that aims at peace is sad. It is certainly an indictment on so much of the human race that we often need a common enemy to unite us. In wartime Germany it was the Jews. In Sydney several years ago it was people of Middle Eastern descent. In Ancient Rome it was, for a long time, the Christians.
Thankfully, humanity has a God who uses the truth to bring about peace. And it is God himself who came in flesh to bear the punishment that would cement this peace. As Jesus says in John 8:31-32:
“If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free".
We do not need a lie to fool us into being better people. We need the truth to become the people God crated us to be.
Watchmen is an incredible parable about the nature of humanity giving insights into what drives people at both the most public and most intimate levels. It is at times unflinchingly violent (the film is, after all, directed by Zack Snyder known for The Dawn of the Dead and 300). It is occasionally sexually explicit, including an attempted rape, and Dr Manhattan spends about half his screen time without any clothes on which means you spend a fair amount of time staring at a naked blue guy.
However, if your conscience enables you to stomach a handful of these moments on the big screen you will experience a film that will leave you talking for a long time.
