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14 / 03 / 2010
Fantasy F1: The results from the first race in Bahrain are in! Check the results, see how your team did or enter a new team. Next race is Australia on 28th March.

09 / 03 / 2010
Fantasy F1! Yes, there's a brand new Fantasy Formula One game! Check the rules or enter your team by Friday night to qualify for the first race in Bahrain!

08 / 03 / 2010
Fantasy Rally: The results from Rally Mexico are in! Check the results, see how your team did or enter a new team. Next race is Jordan on 1st April.

17 / 02 / 2010
Fantasy Rally: The points awarded for a win have changed in the real WRC, so we've reflected the changes in our scoring too. Check the rules to see the details. Next rally is Mexico on 5th March, teams will be frozen at midnight on the night of Thursday 4th March.

16 / 02 / 2010
Fantasy Rally: The results from Rally Sweden are in! Check the results, see how your team did or enter a new team.

31 / 01 / 2010
Fantasy Rally: The new rally season is upon us - 2010 Fantasy Rally is now open! Check the rules or pick a team ready for the start on 12th Feb.

25 / 10 / 2009
Fantasy Rally: All previous years' Fantasy Rally results are online - Check the 2009 season.

02 / 08 / 2009
Reviews: Sorry, there won't be any more movie reviews for the foreseeable future. Events have overtaken me. Catch up on reviews you may have missed.

18 / 08 / 2005
Sudoku! Have a go at the online Sudoku game.

Watchmen

Cast: Jackie Earle Haley, Malin Akerman, Billy Crudup, Patrick Wilson, Carla Gugino, Matthew Goode, Jeffrey Dean Morgan. Directed by Zack Snyder. Story: Superhero smorgasbord. Running Time: 2hrs 42 minutes. UK certificate 18, US certificate R.

It's the first must-see movie of 2009 and, surely, it can't fail to be brilliant, can it? Bugger. It can and it has.

Watchmen is the latest in a long line of comic book adaptations and it was supposed to be the best of the lot. The dark, morally ambiguous plot should have given it the perfect timing to slot in nonchalantly behind The Dark Knight and set new standards for the genre. And, to be fair, if you're a fan of the comic book then you'll probably jizz in your pants in sheer excitement. For the regular cinema-goer who's never picked up a comic book, however, it's a confusing mess of squished-up plot and under-developed characters that stands no chance of striking any emotional chord, even though it has nearly three hours in which to try. Several times I found myself recapping in my head, thinking, "OK, so she's whats-her-face's daughter, those two used to do the reproductive rhumba ... so who's that guy again?" - and to make matters worse, there's so much fart-arsing around with the time-line that it's never quite clear which bits are in the here-and-now. Watching a movie shouldn't be this hard.

It's not all bad, though. The effects are very nice throughout, even down to Billy Crudup's CGI schlong that we see rather too much of, dangling around in the wind. Despite being confusing, the huge running time actually passes pretty quickly and one or two of the characters (Rorschach, Dr Manhattan) are genuinely interesting and the ending is almost intelligent - as long as you don't think about it too much - but beyond that it's hard to find much to compliment. Director Zack Snyder's last movie was 300, so we could reasonably expect a vivid visual style - but it never shows up. None of the performances are noteworthy and as such it's almost impossible to identify with any of the characters - by the end I really didn't give a toss who lived and who died. But the biggest criticism of all is that it takes itself WAY too seriously. Comic books are supposed to be a bit of fun - if you're going to play them straight then you have to immerse them in their shadowy world, like the last two Batman movies - but even they have their lighter comedy moments. Watchmen's smiles trade on one solitary line - "I'm not a comic book villain" - but this arrives at the wrong moment to be effective and seems almost apologetic. Have some fun with it, for heaven's sake.

Watchmen is a shadow of the movie it should have been. Whilst trying so very hard, and probably succeeding, to please the comic book fans, it alienates the majority. Perhaps the crystallising moment appears early on, when Carla Gugino moans about being a 67 year old woman. "No you're not," I thought, "you're clearly a 30 year old in bad make-up." It never improved from there.

Who watches the Watchmen? Lots of confused and disappointed viewers, that's who.

I enjoyed this film: 3/5

I think the average moviegoer will enjoy it: 3/5 (but 5/5 if you read the comics).

Testosterone Satisfaction Rating: 3/5 - Malin Akerman gets naked but it's a dark scene. Billy Crudup's CGI sausage is continuously flapping around. Some overblown violence, a la Sin City but less stylised. Not really for kids.

To enjoy this film: be a fan of the comic books.

Watchmen was released in the UK on 6th March 2009.