SCREEN | Watching the 'Watchmen: Chapter I' in Animation

"We're society's only protection!"

Warner Bros. Animation / DC Studios

DC's latest animated Watchmen adaptation, based on the groundbreaking 1986 graphic novel, takes its time faithfully translating another deconstruction of superhero storytelling nearly forty years after its initial publication. Watchmen: Chapter I, the first installment of a two-part release, features plenty of moody animation directed by veteran animator Brandon Vietti, who fleshes out the central murder mystery stylishly.

Famously created by cantankerous English comic book author Alan Moore, who has removed his credit like all recent adaptations of his work, and artist/illustrator Dave Gibbons, the film's damaged 1985 "Crimebusters" superhero team is voiced ably by character actors Matthew Rhys, Katee Sackhoff, Titus Welliver, and Troy Baker as Nite Owl, Silk Spectre, Rorschach, and Ozymandias.

Adapted by veteran sci-fi television writer and comic book author J. Michael Straczynski, this Watchmen treats its alternating multi-timeline story of the 1940s and '80s with the proper context without having to rush its layered mystery originally told as a twelve-issue comic series.

As a visually faithful retelling of the seminal dark tale before Chapter II's second part (scheduled to come sometime in 2025), it further proves both the simultaneous timeliness and timelessness of the hardboiled yet supernatural detective material of an alternate version of the twentieth-century in a world where superheroes exist and the subsequent complications or problems that come with their unchecked power.

Watchmen: Chapter I is available to stream on various digital platforms and through video on demand.


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