Fanboys to go ga-ga watching 'Watchmen'
Watchmen
Running time: 156 minutes
MPAA rating: R (harsh profanity, extreme violence, adult situations, disturbing images, nudity)
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Like "Iron Man" last summer, "Watchmen" is a smorgasbord of graphic novel-to-big screen wizardry.
Director Zack Snyder, who went all Spartan on moviegoers with "300" in 2007, is to be applauded and chastised for sticking so closely to the 1986-'87 comic book series by Alan Moore and illustrator Dave Gibbons.
Moore, who wanted no part in this attempt to bring his down-and-dirty superheroes to a movie screen, gets the last evil chuckle here. Unless you live and breathe "Watchmen," you're likely to be dazzled, then frazzled by a hard-to-follow storyline that jumps back and forward like checkers on steroids.
It unfolds in an alternate universe United States circa gloom-and-doom 1985. Richard Nixon's still in the White House (enjoying his third term) and someone's trying to wipe out a band of outlawed superheroes.
The good news is that "Watchmen" stirs the grit pot admirably with characters like Dr. Manhattan (Billy Crudup as a supersized member of a warped Blue Man group), Rorschach (Jackie Earle Haley as the detective behind the inkblot mask), The Comedian (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) and Nite Owl II (Patrick Wilson).
While it is a hoot to see Haley and Wilson back together at the fantasy end of the acting spectrum after their harshly real "Little Children" characters of 2006, the movie itself becomes an overindulgent blur after the first hour or so.
On the other hand, if you relish the insertion of pop images in movies, you can expect to be bombarded with everyone and everything from Henry Kissinger to the Vietnam War. Snyder, employing static images so brief they're borderline subliminal at times, machine-guns pop culture images like the Beatles loading up the "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" album cover.
"Watchmen" is fast, furious, frenetic and generally well-acted. It just dwells too long in overkill.
Unless, of course, you're a fanboy.
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