Search - Watchmen [Widescreen] [Special Edition] [Director's Cut] [Includes Digital Copy] on DVD

Watchmen [Widescreen] [Special Edition] [Director's Cut] [Includes Digital Copy]

Actor(s): Malin Akerman, Billy Crudup, Matthew Goode, Carla Gugino, Jackie Earle Haley
Director(s): Zack Snyder
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Movie Details

MPAA Rating: R
Content Advisory: Graphic Violence, Nudity, Profanity, Sexual Situations
Movie Release: 2009
DVD Release: 07/21/2009
Format: DVD - Color,Enhanced Wide Screen Letterbox for 16x9 TV
Edition: Director's Cut,Dual Layered,Includes Digital Copy
Audio Tracks: English, French
Subtitles: English, French, Spanish
SwapaDVD Credits: 2
Number of Discs: 2
Run Time: 3 hrs 6 mins
Studio: Warner Home Video
Members Wishing: 99
Genres: Science Fiction, Superhero Film
See Also: Watchmen [Fullscreen], Watchmen [Widescreen] [Special Edtion] [Director's Cut] [Includes Digital Copy] [Blu-ray], Watchmen [Widescreen], Watchmen [Special Edition] [Includes Digital Copy] [Blu-ray] [Best Buy Exclusive], Watchmen [Special Edition] [Includes Digital Copy] [Best Buy Exclusive]

DVD Synopsis

300's Zack Snyder brings Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons' critically acclaimed comic book -Watchmen to the big screen, courtesy of DC Comics and Warner Bros. Pictures. Set in an alternate universe circa 1985, the film's world is a highly unstable one where a nuclear war is imminent between America and Russia. Superheroes have long been made to hang up their tights thanks to the government-sponsored Keene Act, but that all changes with the death of The Comedian (Jeffrey Dean Morgan), a robust ex-hero commando whose mysterious free fall out a window perks the interest of one of the country's last remaining vigilantes, Rorschach (Jackie Earle Haley). His investigation leads him to caution many of his other former costumed colleagues, including Dr. Manhattan, Night Owl (Patrick Wilson), Ozymandias (Matthew Goode), Sally Jupiter (Carla Gugino), and her daughter, The Silk Spectre (Malin Akerman). Heralded for bringing the world of superheroes into the literary world, -Watchmen gave the super-powered mythos a real-life grounding that had been missing in mainstream comics to that point. The film adaptation had languished in one form of development hell or another for years after the book's release, with various directors on and off the project, including Terry Gilliam, David Hayter, and Darren Aronofsky, as well as Paul Greengrass, whose eventual dismissal stemmed from budget conflicts with the studio. ~ Jeremy Wheeler, All Movie Guide

Actors

Malin Akerman - Laurie Jupiter/Silk Spectre II
Billy Crudup - Dr. Manhattan/Jon Osterman
Matthew Goode - Adrian Veidt/Ozymandias
Carla Gugino - Sally Jupiter/Silk Spectre
Jackie Earle Haley - Rorschach/Walter Kovacs
Jeffrey Dean Morgan - Edward Blake/Comedian
Patrick Wilson - Dan Dreiberg/Nite Owl

Member Movie Reviews

Vanessa V. (sevenspiders) wrote on 7/24/2009...

1 of 1 member(s) found this review helpful.

As a hardcore fan of the graphic novel I was terrified that the movie version would divert all the original Watchmen brilliance into cookie-cutter Hollywood dreck. The mere fact that that didn't happen would be enough to get a stellar review out of me, but Watchmen the movie holds its own as a solid movie adaptation of a complex, haunting story.

Zack Snyder's directing is visually impressive without being distractingly oppressive, as it tends to be in his other comic-book movie 300. The script changes grate on a purist like myself, but I can see how they would be necessary for wider audiences. The acting is fantastic, particularly Jackie Earle Haley as Rorschach and Jeffrey Dean Morgan as the Comedian. With such a large cast of characters, the Director's Cut offers additional time to the development of each, bringing them closer to the three-dimensional, flawed, messy, morally ambiguous human beings they are in the source material.

While the movie never reaches the genius of the comic, its failings are due to the limitations of film as a medium. Alan Moore's objection to the film adaptations is largely that Watchmen was never intended to be a movie, that things were done in comic-form that could only be done in comic-form. I'm inclined to disagree- some things were done that don't translate, but the rest translates into a great movie that's both compelling and entertaining.