Watchmen review - Pat the NES Punk

A review of the film "Watchmen." There are some minor spoilers ahead (if you have not seen it yet).

If you want to skip it, I gave it 2.5/4 stars. :p

**Featured on GameTrailers.com 03/10/09**

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Entertainment

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• watchmen
• movie
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• pat
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• nes
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[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.

[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.

[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

[holycarp1]

Yeah, that's a good point.

[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.

[vintagevideogamegeek]

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

[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.