Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		5.0
Audio		5.0
Extras		3.0
Overall		4.0

Watchmen: An HBO Limited Series Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman June 5, 2020

Carl Jung famously coined the term synchronicity to indicate so-called "meaningful coincidences", and, man, has my personal review queue been full of them lately. A few months ago, just as global awareness of Covid-19 was starting to spread, a film called Abigail, whose plot revolved around a supposed pandemic and the government’s panicked response to it, arrived at the top of my review queue. A few weeks later, at about the exact moment when a certain presidential press conference went a bit off the rails (according to some pundits, anyway) with a casual mention of a certain household product, Tone-Deaf turned up in my queue, offering a character speaking directly to the camera urging viewers to drink bleach. The term “bleach” actually shows up again in Watchmen: An HBO Limited Series (at least as a metaphoric aroma indicating white supremacy), but some (if not all) of the real synchronicity of this show involves a rather sad chapter in American history which has recently once again come to the forefront of the national consciousness courtesy of the widespread reactions to the death of George Floyd. Perhaps your social media feed has been as full of stories as mine has recently in the wake of Floyd's death about the so- called Tulsa Race Riots that occurred in 1921, orchestrated attacks which decimated one of the most affluent African American communities in the entire United States. Rather amazingly for a series which touts its “alternate timeline” conceit, and perhaps especially amazing considering this show was obviously produced well before the current situation, Watchmen actually begins with the Tulsa incident, offering a harrowing opening sequence which sees what we might call Klan members (they’re referred to as the Kavalry in the series itself) just flat out murdering black people right and left as a distraught African American couple attempts to get their little boy to safety. He at least survives, becoming one of the many interlinked characters in this novelistic enterprise.

The weird refraction of actual current events (as this review is going live, that is) continues in this series in rather unexpected ways. Consider this plot point: there's manifest unrest with the citizenry and the police tasked with protecting them, an element that certainly seems reflective of the current zeitgeist. That unrest that has in fact become so severe that the cops are forced to — wear masks (albeit in order to also disguise their identities from the bad guys). And with regard to the whole “Tulsa thing”, perhaps some of you are aware of the article Ta-Nehisi Coates wrote for The Atlantic a few years ago called “The Case for Reparations,” which discussed the horrifying Tulsa debacle in the context of what African Americans have had to endure and why Coates at least feels black Americans are due some payment for their tribulations (some of that social media presence mentioned above vis a vis Tulsa recently has actually been links to Coates' article, at least on my personal feeds). Rather incredibly, Watchmen has something very akin to this idea lurking just in the background, as in this series’ “alternate” timeline, some guy named Robert Redford or something has been President for quite some time and has instituted what has become disparagingly termed “Redfordarations”. The fact that the series’ ostensible focal character is a black woman named Angela Abar (Regina King) of course makes even this ostensible "subtext" viscerally important.

Speaking of refractions, I actually had to go back and refresh my memory about Watchmen, as it’s been years since I’ve, um, watched it. In that regard, it’s kind of funny to note how creator Damon Lindelof and his team riff on both the original graphic novel and resultant film without ever being totally beholden to them. Those refractions include characters from the film like Doctor Manhattan and/or Ozymandias, who also show up here, but also even general plot points like a group trying to avenge the murder of one of their own. There’s also a repeated visual joke running throughout the series that I have to assume was intentional which might be best summed as saying the “watch” part of the series’ name can be taken literally, in the sense of any number of timepieces which are featured.

I frankly almost don't even want to list character names and actors portraying them, as part of the fun Lindelof and his writers have obviously intentionally provided is little "a-ha" moments scattered throughout the series as certain identities suddenly click into focus. That said, the series offers fantastic turns for Jeremy Irons as Adrian Veidt and Jean Smart as Laurie Blake in particular. The series is deliberately discursive for a while, ping ponging both between timeframes (the bulk of the series is set in 2019, but there are flashbacks, as evidenced by the whole aforementioned Tulsa sequence) and various characters. The underlying premise here is perhaps surprisingly centered in Tulsa and revolves around Angela, who of course also has a vigilante alter ego named Sister Night, but who, like many other characters with "secret identities", is an undercover police officer. Angela is on the hunt professionally for a murderer, not to mention a whole white supremacist subculture threatening life and limb in Oklahoma, but also a quest for knowledge about her family and identity, which is where that little boy who survived the Tulsa massacre comes in, albeit in the form of a now elderly man played by Louis Gossett, Jr.

This is an often visually arresting series that also manages to deliver a typically Lindelofian (I'm coining that term) tale that interweaves a huge gamut of characters. There's a whimsical side to things here, though, something that may help to offset some of the darker currents in American culture (alternate timeline notwithstanding) the series also depicts. Some of the "retro future" aspects seem kind of random, with, for example, this "alternate timeline" having no internet, but with electric cars being all the rage. There's no word on if or when HBO will do anything else with this property, but this "limited series" is both involving and at times surprisingly thought provoking.

Watchmen: An HBO Limited Series Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Watchmen: An HBO Limited Series is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of HBO and Warner Brothers Home Entertainment with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.78:1. The IMDb lists Arri Alexas and a 4K DI as datapoints for this presentation, and it's a stunner quite a bit of the time. While large swaths of the story can play out in darkened environments, and Sister Night herself is a study in various ebony tones, there's surprisingly good shadow definition throughout the series. There are a number of stylistic tweaks that accrue as things progress, including an early vignette recreating a silent movie (see screenshot 7), and a lot of slightly askew framings. Text elements can also predominate at times (the episode titles are often worked into the proceedings in inventive ways). The palette can be on the cool side at times, with an emphasis on blues and slate grays, but that perhaps only makes the more warmly suffused moments pop with that much more authority. Detail levels are generally excellent across the board, and I noticed no compression anomalies.

Watchmen: An HBO Limited Series Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Watchmen: An HBO Limited Series features an intermittently bombastic DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track that provides consistent immersion, along with some really fun, rumbly LFE courtesy not just of some of the slam bang action elements, but, especially in certain episodes, the arrival of things like spaceships. The series has another really evocative, interesting score courtesy of Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, and the music typically floats quite nicely into the side and rear channels. There are a number of interesting sound effects that populate most episodes, and ambient environmental sounds are also nicely placed in several outdoor scenes. Dialogue is rendered cleanly and clearly throughout the presentation.

Watchmen: An HBO Limited Series Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Disc One

• Character Trailers - Sister Night, Blonde Man and Looking Glass (1080p; 3:06) offers brief profiles of this trio.


• It's Raining Squids (1080p; 1:58) looks at one of the wackier plot elements and some of the special effects utilized to create them.


• Watchmen: Masked and Dangerous (1080p; 2:20) is a brief overview that looks at the connections between the graphic novel and this enterprise.


• 2019 New York Comic Con (1080i; 36:49) features Damon Lindelof, who tells a really endearing story about how he was introduced to Watchmen, along with Jen Cheney (host), Nicole Kassell (Executive Producer), Regina King, Jeremy Irons, Jean Smart, Louis Gossett, Jr., Hong Chau, Tim Blake Nelson, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, and Dave Gibbons.


• Becoming Sister Night (1080p; 1:03) deals with some of the production and costume design for the character.


• Watchmen: Alternate History (1080p; 2:04) features a discussion of the show's "alt history".

Disc Two

• Watchmen: Unmasked (1080p; 16:33) is a fascinating piece speaking to some of the psychology of wearing masks. There's once again an almost startling connection to current affairs when "police accountability" is mentioned.


• Andrij Parekh on Directing (1080p; 1:03) is a brief profile of the director.


• Squid Shelter with Tim Blake Nelson (1080p; 2:31) may remind some of another "bunker" in another Lindelof enterprise, Lost.


• Anatomy of a Fight Scene (1080p; 2:32) focuses on an attempt to make a fight scene look like it's one shot (it isn't, they cheated).

Disc Three

• Immortal Vigilante - Hooded Justice (1080p; 11:47) focuses on one of the show's "old school" vigilantes. This is mixed somewhat strangely, with some of the music and effects overpowering the voiceover.


• Adrian Veidt: The Colossal King (1080p; 12:36) gets into some of the history of the character, while also providing snippets of him from the series. This also sounded weirdly mixed to me, with the omnipresent music and occasional effects just overpowering all of the voices of various crew members.


• Glimpses - The Visual Effects of Watchmen (1080p; 3:04) offers progressive versions of some of the compositing for various sequences.


• Notes from the Watchmen Graphic Novel Artist Dave Gibbons (1080p; 1:49) centers on the appealing graphic novel creator.


• Rorschach Featurette (1080p; 1:40) connects the original character to this outing's Seventh Kavalry, as well as the Rohrschach masks in the series.


• Sadiqua Bynum Runs, Jumps and Falls for Sister Night (1080p; 1:03) profiles Regina King's stunt double.

Watchmen: An HBO Limited Series Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Carl Jung averred that an abundance of synchronicities in one's life indicates that one is on the right path. I'm not quite sure what to make of that pronouncement, given the truly strange concatenation of titles that have appeared in my review queue which seem to reflect "real life" in one way or the other, and in that regard, I'm almost afraid to see what's arriving next in my queue. The good news is, maybe I can just rewatch Watchmen again rather than actually look. This is a great miniseries presented on Blu-ray with excellent technical merits and some fun (if often pretty brief) supplements. Highly recommended.