Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons Watchmen It's widely regarded as a classic and one of the best graphic novels of all time. Zack Snyder's 2009 live-action adaptation? Not so much. It's one of the few movies I've walked away from. As a fan of the source material, I felt like I was watching a bad tribute band murder my favorite songs.
So I'm excited and delighted with the first trailer for Watchmen: Chapter 1Warner Bros.' new animated adaptation looks like the movie the live-action version should have been, so it's fair to say it has the potential to be one of the best superhero movies yet.
Like the original, it's not for kids: it's a dark, dystopian, R-rated nightmare. Set in an alternate history of 1980s America, Watchmen It follows a group of outlaw superheroes who are forced out of mandatory retirement after the murder of one of their own. As we soon discover, these superheroes aren't all that super-powerful, nor are they all that heroic.
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Why Watchmen is worth watching
The idea of a dark, morally conflicted superhero story may not sound so shocking now, but in the 1980s, the comic book series Watchmen and Batman: The Dark Knight Returns – which came out at the same time – transformed the genre. And Watchmen Not only is it a complex story well told, it is also visually stunning.
The creators of Watchmen: Chapter 1 They've clearly made an effort to preserve that visual inventiveness, and the scenes with Dr. Manhattan in particular work much better as animation than they do in the film.
It sounds pretty good, and the adaptation features a stellar voice cast. As IGN reports, the voices include:
- Matthew Rhys as Dan Dreiberg (Nite Owl)
- Katee Sackhoff as Laurie Juspeczyk (Silk Spectre)
- Titus Welliver as Rorschach (Walter Kovacs)
- Troy Baker as Adrian Veidt (Ozymandias)
- Adrienne Barbeau as Sally Jupiter (Silk Spectre)
- Corey Burton as Captain Metropolis
- Michael Cerveris as Jonathan Osterman (Dr. Manhattan)
- Jeffrey Combs as Edgar Jacobi (Moloch)
- DeLisle Grey
- Kelly Hu
- John Marshall Jones as a hooded judge
- Max Koch
- Phil LaMarr
- Yuri Lowenthal as Wally Weaver
- Geoff Pierson as Hollis Mason (Nite Owl)
- Dwight Schultz
- Jason Spisak
- Kari Wahlgren as Janey Slater
- Rick D. Wasserman as Edward Blake (the comedian)
They won me over with “Harry Bosch is Rorschach.”
I'm excited about this, but I'll have to wait to see it in full – it's not out until August 13th. But that doesn't mean you can't get one Watchmen In the meantime, get it sorted. If you're in the US, the excellent HBO Watchmen The TV show, which was inspired by the graphic novel but told a very different but equally impactful story, is now available to watch on Max. Those in the UK can watch it on Sky or Now, while those in Australia can watch it on Foxtel Now and Stan.
Watchmen: Chapter 1 will be released digitally on August 13 and on 4K UHD and Blu-Ray on August 27. Watchmen: Chapter 2 It will continue later this year.
