Distributor: Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc.
Episodes: 9
Duration: 60 min (per episode)
Watchmen (Blu-ray) – Series Review
It’s hard to imagine that the Watchmen movie already dates back from 2009. This movie put the rather gritty superhero type movies on the map, because it showed us a very thin line between good and evil. The story, which was based on graphic novels, showed us that even though certain people were viewed as heroes, they would not always solve crimes in the most harmless way possible. Collateral damage was sometimes the result of a road paved with good intentions. Now, in 2020, the year full of disasters, we get at least a great series to watch from the comforts of our very own homes, namely Watchmen. This series situates itself in our present, albeit in the Watchmen universe. We were curious to see how watchable this rendition of Watchmen was.
The series starts off with an often forgotten piece of history, namely the Tulsa race massacre, which resulted in many black people losing their lives in 1921, and many more being admitted to the hospital. This serves somewhat as a focal point in the series, as we are then fast-forwarded to Tulsa in 2019, where a white supremacist group, The Seventh Kavalry is now active. It starts off with violence against a masked police officer, as officers now wear masks to protect their identities. This person is a black officer and is killed by a member of the aforementioned faction. All the stops are then removed from the masked police force, who will then try and contain the faction, and hopefully disband it.
At the same time, as it’s in the Watchmen universe, masked vigilantes are now outlawed because of what happened in the past due to the violent methods of supposed heroes. It’s clear that certain law enforcers still act as if they are somewhat masked vigilantes, but it seems to be more regulated now. Things truly kick-off when the head of Tulsa’s police department is found hanging from a tree.
It’s hard to properly describe the flow of the 9 episodes of Watchmen. The series starts off slow, really slow actually, but it does set a proper tone. It handles topics that revolve around racism a lot, but it’s actually done in an original and not such an ‘in-your-face’ kind of way. The viewer can more easily relate, than when a series make things politically correct from start to finish, such as for example, Supergirl does. We get to learn more about many of the show’s characters, as well as some of those that appeared in the movie. You can watch the series on your own without consulting the source material, be it the graphic novels or the movie, but you will lack and overlook certain finer details. We do advise watching the movie first, even if you are then bothered with how shitty Dr. Manhattan looks in the series.
In terms of acting performances, we are quite in for a treat. From start to finish we actually see very impressive cast members run up and down the silver screen. We see big names such as Jeremy Irons and Regina King steal the show, but also series veteran Tom Mison makes his appearance. The latter is nearly unrecognizable without his Sleepy Hollow getup. Other names also include Louis Gossett Jr., Jean Smart and Andrew Howard. We can only argue that the casting for Dr. Manhattan feels a bit off for the series, which might irk a few fans of the movie or the original source material.
The last few releases we frowned heavily upon Warner’s home releases for having hardly any (if any) special features. This time, with the Blu-ray edition of Watchmen we were pleasantly surprised. There was a massive amount of extras to be found in total. You’ll be able to view several features that revolve around the different characters of the series and the main story, as well as information about the alternate history of this world, and certain events that occurred over the years. We’ll see a sketch being made by the graphic novelist Dave Gibbons himself, and also learn more about fight scenes and the effects used for the series.
All these snippets were spread over the three discs, and they sometimes already showed images and footage of things that hadn’t happened yet in the series. This could actually be considered annoying by some viewers.
Conclusion
While at first we weren’t sure how this series would turn out to be, or even what it would be about, given the somewhat nonsensical early events, we thoroughly enjoyed revisiting the world of the ‘original’ Watchmen. This standalone series proved to be surprisingly intriguing and just as gritty as the original work(s) at times. While certain topics, such as racism, are heavily present in the series, it’s still about masked vigilantes, who may, or may not be, as heroic as one would expect. If you loved the original movie, and can still deal with a certain ‘follow-up’, we reckon you’d enjoy these 9 episodes.
Watchmen (Blu-ray) - Series Review,
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