Watchmen review - Pat the NES Punk

[IggyHazard]

Aside from Rorschach not being left-handed, his coat also has the wrong arrangement of buttons and his left epaulet is always ruffled, even back in 1975. In the comic, he "still had all the buttons on his coat" (as Dreiberg says) back in the '70s and his left epaulet wasn't messed up. Also in the book, the strap is loose on the cuff of his right sleeve as per 1985. Another detail they missed in the moviefilm. Ah, but they got the eqaulet right. Gotta have the loose eqaulet.

[ecmulder]

Personally, I felt Watchmen would have been better as a 12 part miniseries

[oakfire12]

not a bad review but i hated the violence of this movie. it was way out of place, over indugent and and not used correctly. 2 and half stars out of 5 for me

[docpepperclassic]

Thank you. I've been trying to explain to my friends who have never read the comic: Watchmen isn't cool. Watchmen isn't an action story. Hell, it isn't even a spuer hero story. What it really is is a slow, character driven drama. And Snyder made it too cool. Pat, I think 2.5 stars may have been too generous. It would be as if someone decided to make 'Taxi Driver' into a bad-ass action platformer video game. Sure, there are guns in the movie and it might be possible, but it's missing the point.

[nightseifer]

2 and a half? come on man, where is the love?. i am a huge fan of the comic, and the movie far exceeded anything i expected from a comic movie. And the fight scenes needed to be amped up, and they did them well, especially by making them soooo brutal. i took a girl who has never even heard of watchmen, let alone ever read a comic in her life, and she loved it.....although she did think Rorschach was hot!.....says a lot bout me

[PatTheNESpunk]

I strongly disagree that the fight scenes had to be "amped up." Watchmen is *not* an action story... that is the last thing it is, as there is very little action in the comic. As for that girl... maybe she has a mask fetish. : O

[holycarp1]

I agree with you on the subject of the violence-the fight scenes are good, but Watchmen was primarily a story about thematic rather than action oriented elements. However, several of the details the movie omitted were small. Watchmen is a twelve issue graphic novel, and to expect every detail to be present in the movie is a bit unreasonable. Furthermore, this movie is the most faithful comic to movie adaptation I have ever seen. Dark Knight is good, but inaccurate to most Batman comics.

[PatTheNESpunk]

You do realize that the over-the-top action in the film directly counteracts many of the thematic and tonal elements of the story, correct?

[holycarp1]

Of course. The violence was probably pushed for by the studios so the film could be marketed. In my opinion, that doesn't make it bad, just misplaced, better suited for other movies. Ignoring the violence, anyway, Watchmen is a remarkably faithful adaptation. Is it as good as the comic? NO. Is it as good as a mainstream-marketed version of the movie that's shorter than 12 hours could be? I think so. Frankly, Watchmen is best as a comic book, so any adaptation will be flawed by comparison.

[PatTheNESpunk]

The violence was all Zack Snyder on this one, as he largely had carte blanche during production. In my opinion, he bit off more than he could chew with this one. He understood just enough of the comic to make an average film translation, but not enough to make a very good one. When you have an outstanding story to begin with, it takes some bad decisions to direct it into something average. His heart may have been in it, but not his head.

[holycarp1]

Ironically, one of the main problems may have been that Snyder (again, ignoring the excess violence) may have stayed too faithful to the comic book. You can't write the same way for a comic than you can for a movie, and Watchmen in particular showcased several techniques that could only be effectively pulled off in a comic book. Although I liked the film and appreciated the faithfulness to the source material (save the violence and frankly moronic ending change), but Watchmen is best on paper.

[vintagevideogamegeek]

I saw the movie first then read the novel. What bugged me a little about the movie was that they never really justified how fast and strong the regular humans were. Like that scene in the ally when Dan and whatsherface utterly decimate those gang members without breaking a sweat.

[holycarp1]

Yeah, that's a good point.

[zman9294]

I read the novel the day I saw it. I remeber thinking that this movie had the potentail to be better than the dark knight. When I saw it hey this is pretty good. I had to keep telling my friends what was happening so that was a slight problem.I really hated the interaction between rorshack and his landlord missing. that part brought tears to my eyes :(

[Yosefhouser]

I think you're a bit harsh to this film. I guess it's because I see this film through the limitations of the genre itself. It's really hard to convey most of the comic's parts into film so I can see why it was cut. Anything more than 3 hours is overkill and the movie already seemed long enough. Of course, a director's cut might change this. Also, many of the changes done were dumb like the extended cutscenes which felt out of place, but was made to broaden appeal and the new ended is less cheezy

[dmeth51]

In the IGN review, they also mentioned how the movie took the mystery out of things, with some of the direction choices. Everyone in the theater knew who the bad guy was from the jump!

[dmeth51]

Fair review. Even though I haven't actually read the entire graphic novel myself, even I was able to notice all the things you mentioned in your review. I still found the movie very enjoyable, though. I'll probably finish the novel here, soon, to call a better judgement myself, though.

[eatkeniii]

Hey pat i agree with your review i too am a huge fan of the GN IT and V for vendetta have been my fave GN for about 10 years now. I agree with your assessment of the film. It felt like they kept parts simply to say that they stayed true to the plot while at other time changing it to either dumb it down or because it didnt have enough action. It just felt like such a slap to the face.

[ringlord69]

Surprised you talked about how the glorified action scenes didn't work too well and forgot the worst part of the film - the use of 'Hallelujah' during the sex scene. I mean what were they thinking? It's an important scene for Dan, and not just because he's getting laid, but most of the people in my cinema were laughing. Good review; though I agree with everything you said I would give it a higher mark.

[vintagevideogamegeek]

The use of that song in that scene was my old real complaint about this movie.

[jesseisagamer]

the changes that were made were understandable, the book doesnt really led itself well to movie form. So some things needed to be left out/changed in order to do well. I thought it was okay.

[miteymouse]

Which change hurt your geek heart the most?

[PatTheNESpunk]

Cutting almost all of Dr. Long, his home life, and most of his interaction with Walter... Dr. Long's my favorite character. :(

[eatkeniii]

the Removal of Veidts doubt because i felt it left him feeling decidedly one dimensional against the rest of the cast and painted him as sort of a remorseless monster. And the lack of kalimari lol.

[Jennero]

Nice review! Also I just got on the Punk band wagon!