Watchmen: First Reviews Are In
Finally unleashed from a much-publicized rights dispute between Fox and Warner Bros., “Watchmen” is less a fully realized comicbook epic than a sturdy feat of dramatic compression. Fans of Alan Moore’s landmark graphic novel, concerning a ring of Gotham superheroes brought out of retirement by an impending nuclear threat, will thrill to every pulpy line of dialogue and bloody act of retribution retained in director Zack Snyder’s slavishly faithful adaptation. But auds unfamiliar with Moore’s brilliantly bleak, psychologically subversive fiction may get lost amid all the sinewy exposition and multiple flashbacks. After a victorious opening weekend, the pic’s B.O. future looks promising but less certain.
Only illustrator Dave Gibbons is credited onscreen with authorship of the 12-part novel, first published in single issues by DC Comics from 1986-87. As with previous adaptations of his work (including “From Hell,” “The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen” and “V for Vendetta”), Moore, no friend to Hollywood, has distanced himself from this much-anticipated take on his notoriously unfilmable magnum opus.
