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Watchmen
In a gritty and alternate 1985, the glory days of costumed vigilantes have been brought to a close by a government crackdown. But after one of the masked veterans is brutally murdered, an investigation into the killer is initiated. The reunited heroes set out to prevent their own destruction, but in doing so they uncover a sinister plot that puts all of humanity in grave danger.
2009 · Directed by Zack Snyder · 163 min · Mystery · Action · Science Fiction · Screenplay in the scene database · 25 frames
Tagline
Justice is coming to all of us. No matter what we do.
Plot
In 1985, a man living in a Manhattan apartment watches news about escalating Cold War tensions and the response from five-term President Richard Nixon when an unknown assailant attacks and hurls him to the street below. Throughout the opening credits, a montage reviews the rise of costumed crime-fighters from 1939 to 1977, culminating in public backlash and the passage of an anti-vigilante act.
Rorschach, a vigilante detective who operates illegally, discovers that the dead man was Edward Blake, better known as "the Comedian", a costumed hero who worked for the government. Suspecting that other vigilantes could be attacked, Rorschach warns members of his former team, the Watchmen. Rorschach's former partner Dan Dreiberg believes he is paranoid, but relays his concerns to Adrian Veidt, a crime-fighter turned businessman, but he also dismisses the concerns. Rorschach later visits Doctor Manhattan, a physicist whose accidental superpowers make him a national security asset, but Manhattan is preoccupied with energy research and ignores him.
At Blake's funeral, Manhattan, Veidt and Dreiberg each recall the Comedian's pessimism in his later years about the Watchmen's mission. After the service, a lone mourner pays his respects. Rorschach tracks down and questions the mourner, former supervillain Edgar Jacobi. Jacobi says that Blake had recently broken into his apartment while he was sleeping — tearful, unmasked, and incoherent. Rorschach is astonished but doubts that Jacobi would tell a lie so bizarre. During a press interview with Doctor Manhattan, an investigative journalist tells him that several people who had been in contact with Manhattan have developed cancer, including his former girlfriend. As other reporters mob Manhattan with questions, he snaps and exiles himself to Mars. Alone, Manhattan reflects on his existence and his regrets at allowing himself to be turned into a weapon. In his absence, the Warsaw Pact countries make aggressive moves, and Nixon prepares for war.
Plot summary from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA.
Crew
- Screenplay: David Hayter, Alex Tse
- Cinematography: Larry Fong
- Edited by: William Hoy
- Music: Tyler Bates
- Production design: Alex McDowell
- Produced by: Deborah Snyder, Lawrence Gordon, Wesley Coller, Lloyd Levin
Cast
- Malin Akerman as Laurie Jupiter / Silk Spectre II
- Patrick Wilson as Dan Dreiberg / Nite Owl II
- Billy Crudup as Jon Osterman / Dr. Manhattan
- Matthew Goode as Adrian Veidt / Ozymandias
- Jackie Earle Haley as Walter Kovacs / Rorschach
- Jeffrey Dean Morgan as Edward Blake / The Comedian
- Carla Gugino as Sally Jupiter / Silk Spectre
- Laura Mennell as Janey Slater
- Matt Frewer as Edgar Jacobi / Moloch the Mystic
- Stephen McHattie as Hollis Mason / Nite Owl
Production
- Country: United States of America
- Language: English
- Studios: Warner Bros. Pictures, Paramount Pictures, Legendary Pictures, DC
- Budget: $130,000,000
- Box office: $185,258,983
- Themes: usa president, nuclear war, mass murder, secret identity, narration, soviet union, melancholy, retirement, based on comic, conspiracy
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