My Review of "Watchmen: The Ultimate Cut"

Watchmen: The Ultimate Cut is the final Snyder cut of the Watchmen movie that came out in 2009. I think the popularity of this movie has grown since the Snyder cut of the Justice League movie. The problem is that this cut gave me mixed feelings about this movie.

The movie starts out the exact same as the theatrical release. It begins with a murder mystery. This is basically the catalyst that starts off this wild and crazy ride of a movie. The victim of the murder is a superhero named the Comedian. This is a bit of an ironic name for the superhero because he's more of a villain than a superhero. Still we kind of sympathize with him as the movie progresses.

We then get a fantastic intro to explain the world of the Watchmen. They are a vigilante group that have been outlawed. While they were playing superheroes to the world they did a lot of good. Comedian was a member of the Watchmen.

The only remaining member that's still working is Rorschach. He's an enigmatic ruthless vigilante that will stop at nothing to find justice. Obviously he has suspicions of Comedian's murder and starts to investigate. Pretty soon he starts concluding that there must be a serial killer after the old superheroes of olden days.

With this epiphany he starts to warn his old colleagues which includes Dan. The main story revolves around Dan the most. He's retired but has issues with being retired. His life is filled with regret and he doesn't have any ambition to remedy any of those regrets. This case that Rorschach brings up to him kind of lights him up a little.

While all this is happening the world is going through a nuclear war crisis. Tensions are flaring up as the cold war had never ended and it looks like the world is going to go into World War III. Eventually everything links up and it's quite a crazy ride for a murder mystery.

There are also a ton of existential questions that everyone asks themselves. Each of the characters have their own life affirming questions and they really go into each of the characters which results in a movie that's over 3 hours long. Still the pacing is really nice. There are certain points where they drag certain scenes out for drama. I kind of forgave them for that though.

There are also times that this movie takes itself a little too seriously. It can be inadvertently comedic that way. Though there's enough badass scenes that will make you lift your jaw from the ground as well. This is a very violent movie that I would never suggest to kids.

The ultimate cut adds an animated feature throughout the movie based on the comic that a kid is reading throughout the movie. I don't think it adds much to the movie. There are some parallels but you really don't need this part added to this movie. The animated parts also look quite jarring compared to the rest of the movie because the styles really don't mix.

Still this movie is pretty authentic to the comic book. I did read the comic book a long time ago and this movie is pretty close to it, especially with the added comic book scenes. Some of the scenes are shot for shot from the comic panels. It's pretty amazing if you're a fan of the comic book.

Special effects are still good but I can see that it is quite dated and the 4k transfer that I saw wasn't quite the best and the audio mix wasn't really elevated either. If you have to buy this movie buy the director's cut on Blu-Ray. This current 4k edition isn't really worth it.

Overall, this movie has a special place in my heart and I will always enjoy it. I'm a big fan and I thought the cast and the overall tone of the movie were perfect. There's so much to love about this movie but it isn't for everyone. There are a ton of gratuitously violent scenes in here as well as politically incorrect scenarios. Today's generation might not like the fact that there's a lot of forgiveness to the unforgivable past. I have to give this movie an 8 out of 10. I will definitely come back to it every so often.