It has to be said to start with that while I am a nerd I am not a big Western comic reader and so I've never read Watchmen, when the hype started building for the movie many tried to push the book on me but I tend to find it is best to read source material after seeing the film. So, take this as a review from someone without a reference point. I know that there is a different ending to the books, to be honest having since read what that ending is I think it would have made a ridiculous end to the film and I'm glad they changed it...
The film subverts many superhero tropes and I can see why this is the comic for comic book fans, the opening credits are so full of life and warped superhero stereotypes that this sequence alone makes the entire film for me (the fetish lesbians have only a small amount to do with this). While I find Moore himself to be quite odeous I find his comics are the perfect "believeable" dark future/alternative history, he twists just enough of the plausible to give us a twisted mirror of what could be. Stand out for me though is the art direction; the early era Minute Men are given the delightful 40s/50s pinup American saviour treatment, the 80s styling on the later era work done to a tea. I swear that if I don't look too carefully that the 1980s Nite Owl is actually William Hurt from Children of a Lesser God. The colouring and special effects are similar to Snyder's other major work 300; I love the speed effects on the melee scenes that add the right kind of exaggeration to the superhero fights.
Jackie Earle Haley is one of my all time favourite character actors and he plays the vigilante on the edge to perfection. Here he is reunited with this Little Children co-star Patrick Wilson, and if you haven't seen him in that role you need to as it is one of the finest acting pieces of the last decade in my opinion. Jeffrey Dean Morgan is also excellent as The Comedian even if I can't help but thinking of him as a steroid pumped Robert Downey Jr. If anyone is a disappointment to me it is Matthew Goode as Ozymandias, he comes across wooden rather than aloof and I'd have preferred to see the likes of Ralph Fiennes, Jude Law or another similar British actor in the role.
To those who have been asking if it is appropriate to take their children I say "no, not at all" if your child is 15 or under I would seriously reconsider letting them go see it. The film is very adult and dark in nature, graphic violence and some gore are throughout, mention is made of paedophilia, rape and abortion and there are numerous nude/intimate scenes in the film. So if you're young, innocent and impressionable this is not the film for you, for everyone else I would say it's a must see.
