Blu-ray Movie Reviews

Watched any great books lately? Now you can. The most celebrated graphic novel of all time that broke the conventional mold continues to break new ground. "Watchmen" illustrator Dave Gibbons oversees this digital version of the graphic novel that adds limited motion, voice and sound to the books strikingly drawn panels.

I put off watching this until after I saw the live action version that is playing throughout theaters now. I am new to the Watchmen universe so I didn’t want to go into the live version with any expectations. It was interesting to see how well Snyder translated this story to the big screen. This motion comic gives you the complete graphic novel frame by frame with animation and voiceover added. The result is interesting, but it’s a LONG journey. Ultimately I enjoyed the live version better but this was a great way to explore the original without reading it.

Warner delivers a gorgeous Blu-ray presentation for this release. This isn’t really an animated feature though it does have some moving images in it. Colors look outstanding with great saturation and the image has a lot of contrast and pop to it. I wouldn’t be surprised if we see this type of thing again with future graphic novels.

The Dolby TrueHD soundtrack is good but this isn’t a feature film or even animated film really so most of the soundtrack is the narrative. The tonal balance of the voice over is good but I wasn’t a big fan of having the same person do all the voices, including the female dialogue. I know this is how audio books are done but I don’t listen to those much either.

Warner includes a production diary from the live action film with onset footage and interviews along with a sneak peek at the upcoming Wonder Woman animated DVD. This title is also BD-Live enabled.

Warner delivers a very compelling look at the graphic novel in a way that will probably be copied many times over going forward. If you’ve been feeling compelled to read the novel this might be an alternate route that proves just as entertaining.