Have you ever opened a beautifully wrapped Christmas present only to discover the gift was not yours but someone else’s? This misfire even happens with correctly assigned gifts. Two years ago, after opening the Batman play set, my nephew turned to me and said “I told you—I don’t like superheroes.”
My suspicion is that most moviegoers will feel the same way well into the third hour of Watchmen, opening Friday. The movie, centered on the classic graphic novel from 1986 by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons, has spent the last 20 or so years trying to get made. Studios were no doubt terrified of gambling money on a twisted take on costumed superheroes who hack child-killers to death and sexually assault one another.
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