Film reviews
Men In Black 3
It’s not a sequel that needed to be made, but thanks to the charm of its leads and a tone that harks back to the wit and humour of the original, it’s a pretty enjoyable trip.
Bel Ami
The excellent female support cast saves this patchy effort, which is let down by its leading man and a flat screenplay.
The Dictator
A disappointing, often repulsive and mean-spirited mess of a film with seemingly only one real criterion on its agenda: to shock and offend.
The Woman In Black
Packed with atmosphere, this old-fashioned but deftly told ghost story delivers ample chills and thrills.
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Watchmen (Film)
Rating: MA
Running Time: 161
Country: USA
Director: Zack Snyder
Cast: Malin Akerman, Billy Crudup, Carla Cugino, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Patrick Wilson
Distributor: Paramount
Release Date: March 05, 2009
Film Worth: $15.00
FILMINK rates movies out of $20 - the score indicates the amount we believe a ticket to the movie to be worth“…a truly extraordinary achievement.”
Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons' 1986 graphic novel Watchmen is widely considered to be the best work that the relatively nascent artform has seen, a title only rivalled by Frank Miller's watershed classic The Dark Knight Returns in terms of importance and influence. Long, highly complex and wholly mature in its themes and characterisation, the Watchmen graphic novel is indeed a masterpiece, and many have believed it to be "unfilmable". Director Zack Snyder - who delivered a sturdy adaptation of Frank Miller's far more singular and straightforward 300 - proves those doubters wrong. With his big, bold, beautifully realised movie adaptation, Snyder demonstrates that Watchmen is indeed gloriously filmable. That's not to say, however, that he hasn't bent and twisted the source material a little. There are certain things in the graphic novel that literally just wouldn't work on screen as they appeared on the page. Snyder's skill is in keeping the meaning of those scenes, while substituting with more logical on-screen action. He maintains all of the graphic novel's sense of moral questioning, and that's a stunning achievement in itself. When combined with the staggering visuals, brilliant performances, and pulse-pounding action sequences, it makes Watchmen a truly extraordinary achievement.
It's 1985, and we're in the middle of an alternate reality. Richard Nixon is serving his fourth term as US President, The Cold War has tenuously placed the world on the brink of nuclear devastation, and the streets of America are junked with crime and violence. That's partly because President Nixon has outlawed "costumed vigilantes" - in this alternate universe, superheroes have been fighting crime since the forties, donning outlandish costumes to keep the streets safe. The members of the superhero team, the Watchmen, are now in retirement, except for the psychopathic Rorschach (Jackie Earle Haley), who hates the world and just about everything in it. When one of the former Watchmen - the brutal, fascistic bully The Comedian (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) - is murdered, Rorschach investigates, and is led back into contact with his old compatriots: Nite Owl (Patrick Wilson), Silk Spectre (Malin Akerman), Ozymandias (Matthew Goode) and Dr. Manhattan (Billy Crudup), an all powerful super-being who possibly holds the fate of the world in his hands. As they all search for answers, the Watchmen will be forced to face home truths not only about themselves, but also the deeply fractured world in which they live.
From his dazzling opening credit sequence (which is played out against Bob Dylan's "The Times They Are A Changing", and puts the Watchmen in the middle of various iconic historical moments, from Studio 54 to the assassination of JFK), Snyder announces that he is well and truly in control of his material. While there might be a little confusion for those not familiar with the graphic novel, the film is finely and expertly structured, finding just the right balance between action and characterisation. This is a movie about the psychology of superheroes and crime fighting, and the lacerating knife's edge on which the world constantly sits. It's a big film filled with big ideas, and it makes a mockery of those who think comic book movies are a lower art form. Though it has cape-and-cowl wearing good guys, Watchmen is indeed a serious movie. It's also exciting, funny and often very moving; along with The Dark Knight, this is a truly transcendent comic book adaptation.
