Joel Holsteen - In Class #3- Watchmen

The film Watchmen was yet another film that I was not expecting to have deep and theological meanings behind the story. I was expecting to see a superhero film with the constant themes of justice and good prevailing over evil and the unjust. Watchmen did not fall under this typical category, however, it had twisted heroes who all suffered from personal problems such as greed for power and detachment from mankind. Although many of these heroes were only humans who acted above the law to stop crime some like Dr. Manhattan had superpowers. The major twist that we find in the film is that one of the Watchmen's own members, Ozymandias, decided to play god and recreate the world. Ozymandias chose to end the major feuding between the U.S.A and the Soviets by using Dr. Manhattan's power to bomb key major cities across the world in order to unite the world in a single cause to hunt Dr. Manhattan. This is very different from any other superhero movie because a hero decides to kill numerous people in these bombings on order to unite the world. Another twisted piece to this movie that was unlike the normal superhero movies was the character of the Comedian. The Comedians view on life was a personal justice, he loved killing and saw the world as a big joke. He was always after what he wanted and did not care what others thought about it, like when he raped a fellow crime fighter or killed a pregnant woman caring his child. This film was very intriguing due to the fact that it was dark and the heroes had huge character flaws which led to actions not befitting of a superhero.