Alright, so I just got back from this.

I fell asleep in the middle for about 5 minutes, but I was pretty tired going in so I don't think it was the movie that did it. Still, that was one needlessly long film.

Thoughts:

Whoever wrote the script obviously never learned at film school the whole "show don't tell" thing. Too many plot elements were plugged with stupid dialogue. I can see there's a giant blue guy kicking some Viet Cong ass, it is assumed that he was fighting in the Vietnam War and winning, I don't need to be told. I just saw the blue guy not save that knocked up Vietnamese woman from getting shot, I don't need to be told that it's a contradiction of good or whatever.

All the "big picture" stuff was ridiculous. That stupid blue man and the rich queer with the pharaoh fetish and that Mars bullshit was just pointless. You can keep your profound Wachowski Brothers existential high school philosophy. The main storyline was ultimately pretty damn stupid, the smaller things are what saved it.

Night Owl and that sex-fiend girl weren't even proper characters, and I was kinda hoping she would die, and then all of a sudden the blue guy splatters Rorschach over the ice for no apparent reason instead. What did Night Owl even do? The most pathetic superhero since Robin.

I wanted more Comedian and more Rorschach. Leave that other shit out, or at least keep it to a minimum. Visually though, the blue guy and that flying-around-on-a-glass-mechanism aside, it was great.

Overall I actually enjoyed it, but it took a lot of "overlooking", and take out Rorschach and this is some Fantastic Four shit. In fact, I can't think of a memorable scene that didn't include him.

To conclude: The dialogue was clunky, the blue guy was profoundly stupid, and all of the characters were pansies except for Rorschach and the Comedian.

i walked out wondering how the reactions would be different between people who have and haven't read it. i can't imagine anyone who hasn't read it understanding half of the scenes. its reverence to the book is its greatest weakness. a book and a movie do not flow the same way. and, aside from some small things here and there, the movie is nearly a shot-by-shot remake of the book.

Oh I understood it all. It was a little too easy to understand.

At least I'm thinking about the movie long after it ended. I must say, I don't do that often.

I agree that he hasn't read Watchmen. I haven't seen the movie yet (I'm going tomorrow afternoon) so his criticisms of Snyder's movie may be accurate but calling the original comic obsessed with misogyny and violence is ridiculous. Moore tried to show the consequences of these things in a super hero comic because it was rarely done before Watchmen. I also have reservations about how Watchmen will come across adapted to the screen because what makes the comic great isn't the plot, it's three dimensional characters and using new (at the time) storytelling techniques with the comic medium.

Just saw this. I am a huge comics fan, and I had really mixed feelings about a Watchmen movie being made. All in all, I think it was pretty good, though. I was a little turned off by the gratuitous violence and the one ridiculously overwrought sex scene. It just seemed like they were trying way too hard to prove that it was edgy, adult, not-for-kids, or whatever. Obviously, the comic book is pretty violent, but the movie was over the top.

I didn't mind the change in the ending, nor did I feel like it was too long or all that rushed, which seem to be the main complaints. Rorschach, Dr. Manhattan, and Nite Owl all were done really well. Because those primary characters were pretty well developed and well done, I think the movie worked as a whole. It could've been a lot better with some minor tweaking though, or if they could've found a way to work in more of the Ozymandias/Adrian stuff. It just seemed like they didn't flesh him out as well. He just came across as a stereotypical 2-dimensional evil genius. The character in the comic was a little more subtle and fully developed, I think.

I'd give it like a 6 out of 10 or something like that. Not bad for a movie that I thought was doomed to fail miserably.

yeah, i'm convinced the super low expectations will ultimately deem this as a success because most people, especially fans of the book, are going into it expecting a disaster. and it's really not that bad.

i never read the comics.

saw this last night. was a solid, adult-targeted adaptation. i liked the character development and the plot was fairly interesting, but i was little annoyed at the overuse of flashbacks (but what could they do?).

i do like how superheroes are becoming more real with real entrenched personality flaws and unresolvable conflict.

hey thanks for the spoiler, douche.

Fuck you.

Too superhero-y.

is it possible to spoil a movie based on a 25 year old comic book? seems like you have had enough time to read it if you are really that interested in the story.

You just summed up the New Yorker review in two words.

RIYL: blue dongs

i've had the book for awhile but just got around to reading it now and i'm 1/3 of the way through. i saw it this morning but i'm too tired to post my thoughts about it right now.

I haven't read the review, but I didn't really see the whole "superheros as regular people" thing that is supposed to be central to the story. Nite Owl and Silk Specter, after years of lazing around, put on their costumes are are suddenly at the top of their game? Yes, I know, a superhero movie isn't going to be made where the heroes don't whoop ass, but Dan could have at least pulled something during the fight in the alley.

Sorry, I should have clarified. I meant to comment on how shitty the review was in that you perfectly summed up his long winded diatribe in 2 words.

He would have loved the Apatovian take on the film, then.

(& that critique of Apatow was as spot-on as anything said of Tyler Perry (blech!) & Woody Allen (vomit!). Judd is no different in his social views than Fred Durst... He just has a better publicist (indie-fanboys instead of frat-boy rapists).)

You know, every time I see Nite Owl in the previews, I wonder how anyone who saw the movie could say he was "spot on". Maybe I don't remember the book that well, but I thought he supposed to be fat and definitely not "at the top of his game".

Looks like I won't be seeing this today, but hopefully I can make it during the week. I'm trying to keep my expectations low in the meantime, but I've heard good things from the people I've talked to who've seen it.

Not to spoil anything, but there are scenes where he appears a little tubby. There are lines in dialogue that allude to this as well. They really make sure you know how impotent he is without his suit.

I saw it Monday night, having no previous idea of the story or background on the comic...

I Loved it....

I think it could have been 20-30 minutes shorter, and the stuff I would remove was all the Mars stuff as well...Hell, I hated that whole character anyway...I wish the story would have been more all about the retired superhero's, and not one that actually had powers....

but, in the end, I loved it, and just bought the GN on Amazon for 11bux new.

i liked it but i'll admit that, having read the book, it's hard for me to be objective about the plot and characters because the movie's adaptaion was an overlay of a deeper knowledge of the main (and fringe) characters so was harder for me to spot holes.

that said, i wasn't disappointed. the changes to the end i think were warranted as a giant brain/squid/alien would've translated to the screen as hokey. i thought they went a little overboard on the graphic-ness of the violence/gore and sex. not that it wasn't in the book, but when you see it in real life as opposed to in drawings less is definitely more.

on the whole, though, it was good. i was really scared that it might've been a transformers level destruction of the material and a waste of my money, but, then again, it wasn't michael bay. . . thankfully.

I saw this last night on IMAX.

I thoroughly enjoyed the film. I had no knowledge of the story prior and had no real expectations going in. I heard it was a little over 2.5 hours and that made me a little hesitant.

Normally I think sex scenes are pointless and unnecessary. I actually thought this one held some significance and was a lot more important/story-driven than most sex scenes you may see in other films, especially given night owl's impotence a few scenes before, absent his suit.

I thought that the flashback montages were extremely well done and inter-cut with other action superbly. Rorshach's (sp?) in particular was amazing.

I do agree with Mick, though, that my favorite character was definitely Rorshach (sp?) and that there were half as many good scenes that he wasn't in than those that included him. When dude dumped the hot oil all over the other inmate and yelled, "That's right! I'm not locked up in here with you. You're locked up in here with ME" I lost it. Dude was badass.

My only real complaint, not even knowing the story beforehand, was that the movie made it EXTREMELY obvious who the bad guy was and I knew very early into the movie who was behind it all. Whether or not that was the point or to be expected, I don't know. I just don't like figuring shit out. And I don't put a lot of energy into a film's predictability etiher.

The most annoying thing about it was all the idiots chuckling at the blue, flaccid penis. I mean, grown adults giggling like they're 9th graders in gym class. Get the fuck over it. I didn't even really notice it at all. So. Dumb.

yeah, totally agree on the flashback scenes. integral to the story but it was executed in a way that didn't feel redundant even though it was done for all six characters.

i was pretty disappointed that they changed the scene where rorschach confronts the child molester. that might have been the best thing he did in the book. and then they blew it in the movie. no idea why. i mean, the dude is psychotic in the book. the movie made him into a much more sympathetic character.