Philosophical review of "The Watchmen"

****Beware Spoilers****

A different sort of superhero flick opened up last weekend--"The Watchmen."

The movie played a little like a mystery "Whodunnit" and featured more character development than action. Combined with its "R" rating, it seems unlikely to score big at the box office.

While I enjoyed the movie overall, the ending was something of a disappointment because ... well, it didn't make a whole lot of sense.

The U.S. and the Soviet Union, after being at each others' throats with the whole Cold War thing, suddenly learn to get along thanks the the machinations of the heroic villain. Peace on Earth, we live happily ever after. I guess.

But the movie paints a very dark picture of human nature. The criminals seem irredeemable. Rorschach, one of the Watchmen, certainly sees them that way. After all, he'd just as soon kill a criminal as send him to jail. Given that dark aspect of humanity, how is the mere removal of the threat of nuclear annihilation supposed to bring peace on Earth?

The movie's solution to that problem appears to be god. Not the God of Abraham, Isaac and Israel, but the godlike Dr. Manhattan, who might again visit nuclear-style hellfire and brimstone on a populous Earth city from his home in the heavens (the planet Mars, last we checked).

The film ends up giving viewers an implausible mishmash of progressive utopianism and preconventional ethics. The latter concerns doing right out of the fear of punishment. Those who blame society's ills on rich corporate interests are thrown a bone, as the murder of business types such as Lee Iacocca (no, I'm not kidding) appears prerequisite to the achievement of the earthly paradise.

"The Watchmen" succeeds admirably in painting a comprehensive picture of an alternate recent past, but ultimately fails to present a coherent world view. It's as though a handful of writers with differing world views each got to successively write a portion of the ending. It's a bit of a mess.