Great movie, demanding, uncompromising like Rorschach

Rating: 10/10 (16 March 2009)

I swear I must have been in a black hole of comic fandom in 1985! After the movie was announced last year, I sheepishly avoided questions about having read the book. (I had not!) Then all copies of the graphic novel that I had missed sold out or skyrocketed in price! As soon as a reprint came out I picked one up and read through it. So the book and movie is quite fresh with me. I thought both were excellent. Watchmen doesn't pull any punches and is largely faithful to the book. Zack Snyder and Dave Gibbons did a fantastic job bringing Watchmen to the screen. Like Rorschach, the movie does not compromise.
But that could be a detriment for some. It's a movie by fans for fans. While fans will love Watchmen, it may be a mystery for the initiated. People who don't like comics may not get it. The good news is that those people are now in the minority! In 1985, when Watchmen was published, the first mainstream comic movies, Superman and Batman had just been made.
Watchmen is a deliriously complicated puzzle of a story. Tough to do in a film! Watchmen succeeds brilliantly without taking itself seriously. Rorschach, Dr. Manhattan and The Comedian are easily the most complex characters in any graphic novel and could have fallen out of the pages of a Dostoevsky novel. The brilliant acting treatment given to them by Jackie Earle Haley, Billy Crudup, Jeffrey Dean Morgan is really top notch and certainly carried the film. The film is well worth watching for Jackie Earle Haley alone. The look is glorious as well. The Artist Dave Gibbons was very involved with the film and in most places it follows the book panel by panel. Sure there were a few changes, but nothing untrue to the spirit of the novel.