"Watchmen"

Viewed at the local Metrolux. Rated R and I went knowing I would probably have to shut my eyes in certain parts.

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I walked out in the garage where MerleMan was working on something. "I want to go see Watchmen", says I of the "urge to do SOMETHING - TO GET OUT OF THE HOUSE". Roger Ebert gives it 4 stars and says it's good."

MerleMan eyeballs me as his mind, otherwise occupied with said task, starts to awaken to the proposed prospect of going to the movies and seeing superheroes. "That sounds OK."

It's a matinee at 5:10p, so we think we'd better to eat our dinner first - homemade green chili stew and flour tortillas. We decide to take our dessert with us and eat it in the movies - a big square of the chocolatey-est chocolate cake from the grocery story where they charge you $2.50 a slice. Just think how much they make on one sheet cake. "Better put that in a quieter container", says MerleMan who hates the sound of someone chewing gum or the rattle of candy wrappers or popcorn masticating (look it up). I had already planned to do just that and so I proceeded to transfer the decadent, moist, mouthwatering cake-iness to a nice plastic and virtually soundless container along with a napkin, two plastic forks and a small bottle of milk nestled in my backpack with those blue cold things from the freezer. We hit the road.

I write all of that stuff above because the movie isn't going to take up much space here. OK. It wasn't boring, at the least parts I could watch. It was VERY violent. It had violent cutting off of arms, violent sex, violent smashing of faces, heads, kicking of faces and bodies, sharp glass cutting human flesh, numerous crunchings of broken femurs and such, shootings, clubbings and pools, no, not pools, but lakes and seas of thick viscous blood. It had a particularly gruesome business about a 6 year old kidnapped little girl, one of the numerous times I had to shut my eyes. I could still hear and occasionally I would peek a bit to see if the really bad parts were over - they weren't. I remember telling myself "You knew it was R rated, you were the one who really wanted to see it, so you cannot complain. This is what you get when you decide to go to an R rated movie that says "violence, sexuality, language". What did you expect?"

Well, of course, the whole movie wasn't just violence, only about 85% of it. Some parts were quite funny. In fact, I suspect that much of it was supposed to be funny. The special effects were pretty great. There's a big blue guy who was a regular human until he had an accident with radiation and he's interesting..... a deep, naked thinker. There's a superhero girl who of course, kicks some serious butt and bares her own upon occasion adding to the great enjoyment of all the males in the audience.

I guess I needed to read the DC Comic book about these characters and maybe I would have been able to get into it a bit more. As it was, the story was back and forth and a little choppy in jumping from one scene to the next. The world faces annihilation, the Watchmen could be getting killed off, is one of the superheroes the villain?, will the superhero girl and the superhero guy who looks vaguely like an owl get it on? (yes, they will - in the superhero aircraft that looks like a fat, stubby pickle).

I read the entire Roger Ebert review after I got home and I don't know how he came up with such a high opinion of this movie. He obviously is much more intelligent and sophisticated than poor little moi because he was able to really write a boatload of highly complimentary "stuff" about it. I just couldn't relate although I could agree it possibly had a few intelligent moments. They were just spaced way too much apart to allow this movie to be considered well done.

HOWEVER. I did think the best part of the movie was the opening credits - they really were different, creative and fantastic. Totally the best opening credits I've ever seen - really. They grabbed me right away and I was primed for this movie. Sadly, though, it never measured up to it's wonderful beginning. It's almost like they wasted all of their best creative efforts on the first 5 minutes of the movie.

Rating for "Watchmen"