Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

The laughing was what really bothered me. I am sitting in an imax theater in Times Square and for the life of me, I can't figure out why these lunatics are laughing.

Alan Moore wrote the Watchmen between 1986 and 1987. That's important, without this detail, a layered and occasionally impenetrable story makes absolutely no sense. Without a sense of what the threat of nuclear war meant, it makes no sense. Without having walked down the street in mid 80s NYC, it makes no sense. Without some dubious feeling about the underbelly of all that Reaganism, it makes no sense. Without a general feeling that that the world is going to hell in a handbasket it makes no sense. Without this context, you're just an idiot in a movie theater laughing at a dude getting chopped to death with a meat cleaver.

With this context, the scene I am referring to is almost breath taking. Rorschach, a hero in this world, is telling his prison therapist about when he reached his breaking point, about the exact moment he gave up on the world.

That is the central conceit of this story. All the heroes differ from a Superman or a Batman in two ways. First, they have remarkably human weaknesses. Second, they seem to be loosing the battle for their humanity for the entire movie. Rorschach, a cross between Batman and Jeffrey Dahmer, highlights this well. Dr. Manhattan, a man who exists in several times at once, in several universes at once and yet somehow is incapable of whipping up a pair of pants is another. Sure it starts sunny and bright, but this is a pessimistic film. Truth be told all the optimism is limited to the opening credits, an inspired extended walk through the history of these heroes that starts with V Day and ends with a hate crime perpetrated on one of the heroes.

This is by no means a great movie. It's certainly not a great comic book movie. My favorite comic book movie ever was "Iron Man", it had not point other than to be super-fun. The Watchmen comic book was inspired, but as you probably guessed the story has not aged very well. Still it is amazing to look at, detailed, dense almost too much. The comic book itself was practically a movie. Every page was laid out assuming nine panels, and more closely resembled a movie story board than anything. It is practically unfair to make a viewer watch these images blow by you in real time without giving you the proper time to digest it.

There are some scenes of high unintended comedy, a particularly ill placed love scene between two of the weakest characters in the script pretty much fails. But the rest is gloomy. The ending is so cynical I was besides myself when I read it and just about crawled under my seat when I saw it on a screen.

Somewhere in the middle, there is a flashback to a "hero" named the Comedian, who closely resembles what would would come out if Captain America ever raped and impregnated the Joker. As he stands over a a Vietnamese hooker he has just killed, he starts talking about how its all "a big joke" and laughs awkwardly, something he'll do several times throughout the story....15 years since I read the stupid thing and I still haven't figured it out. What in the world is there to laugh at?