Watchmen

Watchmen (2009) adapts a comic long considered unfilmable, and the result is still being argued over. It is 1985 in an alternate America. Nixon is still president, the Cold War sits on the nuclear line, and masked heroes have been outlawed. When one of the old costumed veterans is murdered, Rorschach starts digging and finds something else entirely. The best thing in it is the opening title sequence, which compresses thirty years of alternate history into a few minutes over Bob Dylan. It is regularly listed among the best title sequences ever made. Snyder chose to reproduce the comic panel by panel, and that is exactly where the argument sits. Alan Moore wrote the book to dismantle the superhero. Filming those panels beautifully, the criticism goes, re consecrates the very thing being taken apart. Other viewers consider the fidelity correct. The ending differs from the book, and most readers find the change more coherent. It runs 163 minutes and longer cuts exist. Good for: comic adaptations, alternate history, and dark takes on the superhero. Less good for: the violence is severe, the sex is explicit, and there is an attempted rape. Anyone expecting a conventional superhero film is in the wrong place.