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| Director: Zack Snyder
Actors: Jackie Earle Haley, Patrick Wilson, Carla Gugino, Malin Akerman, Billy Crudup
Studio: Warner Home Video
List Price: $34.98
Buy New: $13.23
as of 11/24/2009 02:59 CST details
You Save: $21.75 (62%)
New (36) Used (16) Collectible (2) from $11.40
Seller: KAMEnt
Rating:  504 reviews
Sales Rank: 984
Format: Color, Director's Cut, Dolby, DVD, Special Edition, Widescreen, NTSC
Languages: English (Original Language), English (Subtitled), French (Subtitled), Spanish (Subtitled)
Rating: R (Restricted)
Region: 1
Aspect Ratio: 2.40:1
Number Of Discs: 2
Running Time: 186 Minutes
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.3
Dimensions (in): 7.4 x 5.4 x 0.7
MPN: 1000089594
UPC: 883929057795
EAN: 0883929057795
ASIN: B001QTXM5Y
Theatrical Release Date: 2009
Release Date: July 21, 2009
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: Brand New! Factory Sealed Perfect Condition. Region 1
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 11-15 of 504
 Great movie and blu ray November 8, 2009
El Fred (France)
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
I bought it from france coz we don't have the director's cut on the french blue ray. It's really worth to have this blu ray.
Dark, Awesome Superhero Epic November 7, 2009
Stephen B. O'Blenis (Nova Scotia, Canada)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
One of the darker and most apocalyptic comic book adaptations yet to make it to screen, Watchmen is a super-powered epic in a dystopian world where the lines between right and wrong have been blurred and danger and doom seem to be closing in on all fronts. It's famous for its darkness and its view of a cynical world, but I think it's going too far to call Watchmen a nihilistic movie. For every look at the broken society it tales place in, every moment of human depravity, and every shade of despair, there's also an unexpectedly bright glimmer of hope, a chance at redemption, or a moment of tender beauty. And of course, it all takes place in an action-pached, visually awesome panorama.
Taking place in an alternate version of 1985 America where superheroes and supervillains have existed since the late 30s and have changed the course of world history (including a quick ending to the Vietnam War that saw Vietnam become the 51st state), Watchmen opens in a dark, cynical world where a nuclear showdown between the U.S. and the Soviet Union seems imminent. Superheroes - except for those acting under the auspices of the U.S. government - have been banned for several years now, although some rogue crimefighters still continue on in the shadows, such as the masked, highly violent vigilante Rorschach (played by Jackie Earl Haley). We see through flashbacks how the relationship of superheroes, the general public, and the government had changed over the decades: originally greeted with great enthusiasm, beating back a crime wave in the 30s and 40s and helping to win World War II; the backlash a few years later including the hate crime murder of the openly lesbian superhero Silhouette and her lover, as well as the locking away of various costumed crimefighters into mental hospitals; the superhero rennaissance in the 1950s with the appearance of the first truly superpowered hero, the godlike Dr. Manhattan (played by Billy Crudup); the formation of the Watchmen with sincere hopes of saving the world; and the twilight of the superhero age with conflicting agendas between the heroes and the government, rifts within the superhero community opening up due in part to the increasingly open hyper-violence of characters like the 'superhero' The Comedian, public panic, and finally the banning of costumed crimefighters. (And this is just the backstory to the main tale!) Which brings us into the movie's present, where Dr. Manhattan is one of the only 'legal' superhumans (who would be difficult to ban even if he weren't working alongside the government - his power surpasses that of the combined might of all the world's conventional and nuclear armies) - and the mentally unbalanced Rorschach leads a brutal one-man war against crime, while possessed of a seering hatred of the very world he's supposedly protecting. And most of the former costumed heroes have simply slipped back into the fabric of society and are leading relatively 'normal' lives, their secret identities still mostly unknown.
Yes, it's difficult in the beginning to tell who the good guys are and who the bad guys are, and to some extent even after the movie's conclusion it's up to the viewer to decide who falls under which heading. It's made somewhat clearer as the flashbacks bring in the long-standing motivations of various characters, as well as their often tragic pasts. In my mind, by movie's end, there actually are some characters who deserve to be filed as true heroes, there are definately some true villains, and there are a lot who straddle that blurry line. The lack of the movie clearly identifying in its early chapters who you're 'supposed' to root for and against ends up as a plus rather than a minus and fits in with Watchmen's somewhat non-linear storytelling.
After Rorschach decides that the death of one of the supposedly retired members of the old Watchmen team was actually a murder, he gets it in his head that someone's coming after all past and present superheroes, and attempts to enlist other former Watchmen to form a resistance. He also seems to feel that this ties in to some grand conspiracy that's going to usher in the end of the world. Largely dismissed as paranoid by his former peers - and with understandable reason given his increasingly erratic and hostile behavior in recent years - later events begin to add credence to at least some of Rorschach's theories. But can he put the remaining members of the Watchmen back together, and if so, will that save the world or somehow destroy it? In the overall story that, with flashbacks, covers years, we see heroes unable to stop the chaos in the world from spinning out of control and nearly go insane from it; we see heroes fall from grace and try to crawl their way back up; we see villains recognize at last the horrors of their own atrocities and attempt to go straight - or do they?; and we see the most powerful being on the planet slowly start losing the ability to relate to humans or to perceive existance in the same way mortals do. In many of its instances Watchmen is as it's been touted - heroes struggling in an uphill battle to make a difference, and not always succeeding. In other cases though it's a case of the Villains doing exactly the same thing - trying to make a difference and not always succeeding. Because in the minds of most (not all) of the movie's real bad guys, they Think that what they're doing is for the greater good. And what's even more potent than having them just all be insane with really twisted views of the world, when you see their reasoning and their goals, it often makes a horrifying kind of sense.
There's more subtext to the movie than could be discussed here. A few random observations - the musical score and the use of various songs fits in absolutely perfectly with the onscreen happenings; the sudden return of two supposedly retired Watchmen to save the trapped inhabitants of a burning skyscraper is one of the most dramatic and awesome movie moments I've ever seen; the physical battles are incredible; the constantly changing patterns on Rorscach's mask are freaky cool; and Malin Akerman as Silk Spectre II is possibly the sexiest super-heroine yet seen on screen.
Watchmen succeeds hugely on multiple levels. It should be noted that though this is a superhero movie, this definately isn't something to get in for your seven year-old Spider-Man/Iron Man fan (those movies are great too, but in a different way). A grand, disturbing and enthralling epic.
 Sorry I paid for it November 7, 2009
S. Palmer (OG, NJ)
6 out of 14 found this review helpful
I already entered one review, which was not posted, apparently because it was a pure angry rant. I admit that. So this time I thought I'd try to explain why I didn't like it because I feel that science-fiction lovers, such as I, really need to be fore-warned about what they are in for.
I wanted to give this 0 stars, but that's not allowed.
Unless you are prepared to be assaulted with 3 endless hours of non-stop (and extremely graphic) murder, mutilation and dismemberment, avoid this movie. There is nothing to balance all this endless, nauseating violence. Not a single character rises above the level of thrill-killer. There's no one to identify with, or care about. Every character is more-or-less depraved, mostly more.
"Texas Chainsaw Murders" is way more sophisticated movie-making, character development, and script-writing, except that mega-millions of investment dollars were sent down the tubes on actors and FX in "Watchmen".
The "alternate reality" is 24/7 nighttime, 24/7 rainfall, 24/7 squalor. It's implausible even in a hypothetical way. (What do people in this world eat, if there's never a ray of sun?) No civilization, even a made-up one, can exist if every person gets his jollies murdering every other person.
I planned to enjoy my dinner while watching it. My dinner was spoiled and my evening ruined. I had to stop it in the middle, but started up again to see if there was somehow a brilliant revelation at the end to make it worth enduring. But that did not happen at all, it was just more of the same ugliness right through to the dopey predictable end.
The actors are all excellent, given the hopelessly .05-dimensional creep characters they have to play. It was really a pleasure to see Stephen McHattie again (before he got a bullet through his head). Billy Crudup is unrecognizable, and thus perhaps this will not be a blot on his otherwise distinguished career.
The special FX are also superb, sometimes fascinating. No fault there, either.
"The Incredibles" by Pixar handled the same concept with complete brilliance by comparison. This movie amounts to the equivalent of a spoiled adolescent's way of getting attention by beating up smaller kids, breaking their toys, and shouting obscenities. That is the intellectual level of this excuse for a big-budget movie.
The writers, director and producers of this movie should take a lesson from any Japanese anime, in which all the elements of character, plot, love-interest, struggle against opposition, personal demons, temptation, redemption, etc. are carefully handled with sublty and craftsmanship. You will find none of that in this awful flick. What you will find is blood in your face, compound fractures, body parts, splattered screaming corpses, and laughter at murder. No point to it at all. Repeated over and over.
I really feel that anyone who can sit through three hours of this extremely inhuman, sadistic, in-your-face murder and mutilation of people and their corpses, and say they like it, has real sociopathic tendencies and ought to be under close observation by mental health professionals.
I got what I ordered. November 4, 2009
Nicholas J. Sayotovich
0 out of 3 found this review helpful
Great movie! It was shipped on time and cost me a fraction of what it was going for in the stores! What else do you need to know?
 This Movie Was Much Better Than What the Critics Said! November 2, 2009
Michael A. Newman (New Hyde Park, NY)
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
The movie was a little bit dark (the superheroes in this parallel universe literally kill their enemies) but I found it entertaining throughout. The movie starts with the murder of The Comedian, a sometimes hero, most times a nasty bully acting as a hero. He was part of a group of masked adventurers called the Watchmen. Most of the Watchmen were retired but they get together at the funeral and each has their memories of the group that go back to the 1940's.
There is also a "doomsday" clock that slowly moves closer to 12:00. All the television pundits believe that Dr. Manhattan has the answer. Dr. Manhattan is a brilliant scientist who absorbed a huge radiation blast and became a blue skinned mutant that has the ability to alter his size, teleport and split into different bodies. He also seems to parade around naked much of the time and is not modest about full frontal nudity. He is the most powerful of the Watchman and is virtually indestructible.
Throughout the movie, the story is focused on on of the Watchmen's quest to find out who is trying to murder the group members and the dark daliances of the Comedian from him trying to rape another hero, to his brutilization of the Vietnamese during the Viet Nam war including the woman who carries his child.
Nixon plays a big part as he was elected to a third term in this parallel world.
I found the movie very fast paced which is the opposite of what the critics had said and wouldn't mind a sequel if one is in the works.
Showing reviews 11-15 of 504
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