Last night I was blown away by a film. It exceeded my on guard expectations and wowed me with the idea that there still lies integrity in Hollywood. The Watchmen gets a hats of to Warner Brothers for undertaking such an ambitious project allow creative leeway to its director, Zack Snyder. I won't lie, I enjoyed 300. Take that as you may, it was unlike any film I had seen before and was genuinely interesting.

To give you some background, I have read the Watchmen. It wasn't as life altering as some would have you believe, but it was a good read. Often, I find Alan Moore as relatively pretentious and full of himself as a writer. Promethia and The Dark Knight Returns were over the top and ultimately boring to me. If you are a hardcore Alan Moore fan, you may be a little disgruntled that there is no Giant Psychic Squid or the excerpts from Hollis' novel are non existent. To me, however, I feel that these mitigations were reasonable for a large Hollywood release, and the film keeps 85% verbatim to the novel, a feat that is often too hard to undertake. I really applaud the effort and care taken to keep the integrity while compensating for a broader audience.

Another complaint of naysayers is regarding the sound track. It's often referred to as misfit and inappropriate. My argument, however is that these songs were chosen specifically to juxtapose the moods of the story. It blends the line between political satire and social commentary on American culture (something Alan Moore is notorious for).

Finally the film was heavily influenced by typecasting. Every character was portrayed visually and emotionally like their illustrated counterparts. Yes, Ozymandias is a little scrawny, but this was overshadowed by his sinister ambiguity. This is contrary to the current Batman series which took very fascinating leaps with it's controversial portrayals of famous characters we've grown very accustomed to having specific roles.

At great risk, I would have to say that I liked this film better than Dark Knight. Dark Knight's Joker was a goldmine, but overall, it fell haplessly as a a good action film and a hoarse Christian Bale. Watchmen felt far more like a dramatic film, and with it's strange dream sequences taken directly from the novel, left me with a small recollection of a Kubrick aftertaste.

From an unbiased perspective, my girlfriend watched the film with me and loved it. She told me that this one of the best films she has seen recently, despite never having read the book or having any sort of context for the film.

This is definitely one for Blu Ray.