Who watches the Watchmen?

[Warning: some mild spoilers]


Well for tonight, the answer to that question was me and thousands of others around the globe. Some people have been waiting 20 years for a movie, some less time, some haven't been waiting at all. I personally have been waiting six months, and a long six months it has been since I finished reading Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons seminal graphic novel.

Reviews have been coming in from left, right and centre; there are those who loved it, there are those who liked it but saw a lot of flaws and there are those who hated it, as well as many other good ones.

Now it's my turn. If you bothered to read any or all of those reviews that I've linked above then you're probably already worn out from all the reading/listening so my review is going to be a simple like/dislike lists format. So here we go:

What I liked:

• Rorschach (Jackie Earle Haley) - the perfect unlikely, disgusting but overall loveable hero
  
• Visually incredible from start to finish
• Awesome opening credits
• Hey that shot's exactly as it was framed in the graphic novel!
  
• "Rorschach's journal..."
• All Rorschach monologues
  
• Patrick Wilson's great performance as Dan Dreiberg
• Matthew Goode as Adrian Veidt definitely made me eat my words over my initial concerns about his ability to pull it off
• The Comedian is unbelievably badass
  
• Action scenes brilliantly choreographed and not way over the top
• Nice bone breaking
• Nice amounts of gore
  
• Very true to the source material
  
• New ending works just as well as the original ending
• Some nice bits of cinematography
• Grime and grit is not lost
  
• Great sets
• Dr. Strangelove war room
• The length - I like long movies
• Story is well paced
• Ambiguous journal ending intact
  
• Looking at Malin Akerman
  
• Malin Akerman's breasts
  
  
  
  

What I disliked:

• Too much slow motion in the opening scene
  
• Malin Akerman's acting in some (not all) scenes
• Billy Crudup as Dr. Manhattan
  
• Rorshach's voice is too similar to Christian Bale's Batman (although it does suit Rorschach too)
• (Practically) No Comedian in the second half
  
• The scene on Mars - engrossing on the page; but boring on the screen (maybe because it revolved around the two worst actors?)
• Music: Great songs (Simon & Garfunkel, Jimi Hendrix, Bob Dylan et al.) but did not at all suit the scenes
• Sex scene - too much of a joke (but I wouldn't cut it as it featured the aforementioned breasts)
  
• President Nixon's way too comical gigantic nose
• Dr. Manhattan growing and shrinking looked like a piece of clip-art being dragged larger or smaller
• No explanation of Rorschach's mask
• No in-depth Rorschach psych analysis (though this probably wouldn't have worked in the film)
  
• Linking it all to Veidt took less than two minutes and was hard to follow even for someone who has read the graphic novel

OK so there are quite a few things I disliked about the film, but there are a lot more things that I loved, and they are the more important things too.

I'm really excited to hear what people who haven't read the graphic novel have to say about the ending; I don't think many more divisive (or genius) endings to stories have ever been written.

Overall I don't think we could have wished for a better adaptation; by no means is it perfect, but it's engrossing, fun, thought provoking and overall thoroughly enjoyable. An admirable accomplishment for the "visionary" Zack Snyder.

Rob.

And for those of you who know nothing about Watchmen here is the trailer to (hopefully) spark your interest: