Short Watchmen Movie Review

Four of us went out Saturday night to watch the Watchmen movie and all four of us liked it. It was a really good movie, though I'm not sure if I can call it great. It's always hard for a movie to live up to a book. While the illustrations in a graphic novel make it easier, there's still only so much book you can cram onto film.

All in all, it was pretty faithful to the book. A plot device used to bring about the ending of the story was changed, but it didn't affect the outcome of the story. The same effect was achieved. And the plot device substitution was related to something that was already being worked on in the original story. The swap enabled them to eliminate a lot of minutiae, subtle hints and side stories. Though purists are complaining about that, it works fine for the movie. It's already 2 hours and 45 minutes. While the time flew by for me plenty of whiners out there have complained that it was too long.

The violence was amped up a bit, but that's Hollywood. I'd expect nothing less with Zack Snyder (300) at the helm. The sex scenes were on target, though the last one lasted a little longer than it had to be so if someone wanted to call it gratuitous, well, so be it. Oh, if you're phobic of glowing blue penises, you might not want to see the movie. ;)

As for the acting, the actors that played The Comedian, Rorschach and Dreiberg/Nite Owl 2 were great. The voice for the guy who played Dr. Manhattan seemed odd. It wasn't what I envisioned. In the group I went with, the consensus was that the actress that played Laurie/Silk Spectre 2 was weak. I thought she was ok. The guy who played Veidt/Ozymandias came across as watered down Bowie eurotrash when he should've been Brad Pitt or Robert Redford when he was in his prime.

And the makeup used to transform actors into Nixon, Koppel, Cavett and other historical figures seemed cartoony. I don't know if that was intentional or not.

Do I sound like I'm nitpicking? I hope not because I think it's a good movie, probably a 7.5 out of 10. I already covered the story in my review of the book and since the movie is faithful to the book, I didn't feel the need to rehash it. I'd still recommend the book over the movie, but that's just me.

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DED