So, I just saw Watchmen. It was okay. Not terrible, but not particularly good, either. Just okay. Huge swathes of the internet are abuzz with what's in this movie right now, so I'll just briefly mention a few things I liked, and a few things I didn't.
A few things I liked:
-The opening credits set to The Times They Are A Changin. The shots reminiscint of newspaper photos were great, and I liked that the director did something really original with all that backing material.
-The guy who played Rorschach. He was awesomly crazy in all the right ways.
-The awesome owl ship. Actually, I've always thought that the owl ship was awesome, but I was very happy to see it in action in the way I imagined it.
-The set design of Ozymandias' Antarctic base. It's like Versailles plus Hoth plus ancient Egypt. Coolness.
-All Along The Watchtower as the backing music for Mars and Antarctica.
A few things I didn't like:
-The director obviously thinks violence is awesome. That's fine, and swooshy, bloody, smashy movie fights are awesome in the right context. Watchmen isn't that context. The fights were a bit too "Bang! Pow! Splat!" for the source material.
-Using Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah during a sex scene. C'mon! That might have been romantic freshman year of university, but we're older now.
-Ozymandias. Zero charisma, and he seemed a bit too obviously evil.
-The new ending. Yes, the book's ending is implausible and kind of ridiculous, but I was still looking forward to it, dammit.
-Nite Owl shouting "NOOOOOOOO!"
-The absence of the minor characters, particularly the kid and the news vendor. But, I guess minor characters would have to be cut to make the run time.
So, it wasn't a travesty, but it wasn't nearly as great as it could have been. None of Alan Moore's stuff has been adapted all that well, unfortunately. Oh, well. The book still rocks.
I just read Watchmen a few weeks ago to get ready for the movie. I must say that I liked the movie rendition, and I think the critics are off base on this one. I also think the ending was better in the movie than the book. A little darker, although I think the book's ending would make "more sense" in terms of the effect it was trying to accomplish. Agree that Ozymandius was pretty stiff. The first scene you see him, it's obvious where it's going. That "NOOOOOO!" was so over the top terrible. The first "sex scene" between NO & SS was hilarious and perfect, and then they had to go and ruin it with that second one. Oh well, making a movie must be hard, even with it all written and painted out for you.
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