Watchmen - Not for everyone (but definitely for me)

`Watchmen' is based on one of the most popular DC graphic novels of the eighties and it's been kicking about in (film) production limbo practically ever since. Many people have even gone as far as to call it `unfilmable.' Therefore, many of its die-hard fans were sceptical when Zack Snyder took on the job of bringing it to the big screen.

The result: a faithful adaptation and - in my opinion - a good one. However, that doesn't mean that it hasn't attracted more than its fair share of criticism.

For a start, you have the fans of the graphic novel. They claim it's still not as faithful as it could have been. Yes, there are a few changes here and there which may leap out at the faithful. My counter argument is that - yes - the source material was so filled with sub-plots and excessive narrative structures, that all of it was never going to make it to the big screen. What we're given is a story that - while being complicated - is also accessible to the masses (and therefore commercially more lucrative - hopefully) and easier to follow.

Then you have the people who have never read the graphic novel. They may not like it because they may be expecting something else entirely. If you look at the promotional poster, you may think that you're going to watch an `X-Men' type film, filled with lots of superheroes fighting it out with various weird and wonderful superpowers. Warning: Watchmen is NOTHING like X-Men.

Watchmen is a multi-stranded narrative which is more of a conspiracy-thriller-who-dunnit than an action movie (there's only two real action sequences in the whole film). Yes, the film happens to be about superheroes, trying to decide whether there's an assassin killing off their numbers one by one, but only one of the superheroes actually has superpowers (the rest are just basically good fighters in masks).

So, if you're expecting either an exact replica of the graphic novel, a straight out action movie, or something like X-Men, you will probably be sorely disappointed. However, if you're wanting to watch a violent, visually-stunning thriller which twists and twines while it introduces various damaged ex-heroes, give this a go. It's dark, moody and certainly different enough to be appreciated for not adhering to every superhero cliché around right now. This is nothing like the `Marvel universe' which is currently so popular!

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