Watchmen Needs To Be A Success - By: Clarke Baldwin

This Friday I look forward to seeing "Watchmen". There haven't been many great movies so far this year, and I'm hoping this will be one of the year's best. It has the CGI and great comic storyline to be right up there with Dark Knight. But will it be a let down? The critics in newspapers and media are cutting the film down, saying it is all wrapped in "misogyny" and won't live up to the hype. Some fans of the comic that saw early previews loved it, others not so much. After watching trailers since last fall, I agree, there is definitely a lot of hype to live up to. Zach Snyder and the crew used the Watchmen comic as their personal handbook and tried to make the best film possible. Many producers thought the movie was "unfilmable" because their are so many facets in the story with multiple characters each with their own storyline. How can you get attached when you are following six heroes? I'm hoping they can pull it off, Zach Snyder did an impeccable job with "300" so I trust him to do the same with Watchmen. I'm sure he knows his career could be smudged with a giant flop as well as anyone else knows. Rorschach is a hero who has ink blots that shift around on his mask. Very different from you quintessential hero, but I think it's cool. Its hard to explain to non-comic enthusiasts what Watchmen is about and why it's so cool. It is similar to Batman in that 5 of the 6 are heroes without superpowers, more the vigilante types. Rorschach is the one investigating the murder of his fellow hero, The Comedian, it could be a corporate or government agency hunting them down? Or a super villain? So the story is a mystery wrapped in an over-arching mystery. There are many moral stories surrounding each character and Rorschach's ink blot mask represents the black and white morality he believes in. Whereas many other's believe in grey areas. So this film may be too morally complex for the average person who likes the Superman type characters. These heroes look out for the people, but no one watches over them. If this film flops it could hurt the comic-film industry as a whole. I like the Iron Man and Dark Knight films and hope they keep coming out with good ones, and not butcher my favorite comics like (Avengers), my fingers are crossed.