While I believe its heart is in the right place, "Watchmen", while not terrible, is a disappointment

Rating: Null/10 (6 March 2009)

"They should have played BTO's 'Gimme Your Money Please' instead of Dylan's 'The Times They Are a-Changin' over the opening credits".
That was my girlfriend's take on "Watchmen". While it got a laugh out of the few people who overheard the sentiment, I strongly disagree with her. "Watchmen" doesn't feel like a cash-grab. I honestly think it doesn't. What it does feel like is a loving, 'I'll do it right so nobody else messes it up' adaptation. I don't doubt that Zack Snyder has as much love for the source material as I do, and I truly do appreciate what he was trying to do with this film.
I'm glad I went in with low expectations due to some of the early reviews, because Snyder's approach, while perhaps seeming to him the only logical approach, to truly film the comic book, is not a cinematic approach. Seen in IMAX, this weakness becomes even clearer. Snyder's storyboards were so close to Dave Gibbons' art that half the movie is shot in stifling close-ups, failing to make even basic use of the widescreen format. Comics and film are not the same medium, and the problems inherent in Snyder's "Watchmen" are the same which would be inherent in my taking the comics, copying Moore's script, and adding the most basic descriptions necessary to turn a script into prose, plus a random ultra-stylized sentence every twenty pages.
All that said, "Watchmen" is not really unwatchable or terrible, except for the direction. The set design is impressive, the look of the "Watchmen" world is right, and while the scenes with Nixon are embarrassing, and Malin Akerman really botches some line readings, the performances are generally excellent. Jackie Earle Haley is completely convincing as Rorschach, and I found him to be the perfect embodiment of Rorschach in every way. I look forward to his take on the scenes which will be added in the director's cut, which I will see at some point. Patrick Wilson's absolutely NAILS awkward nerdy Dan, although he's less convincing as Nite Owl. Similarly, I have no complaints regarding Billy Crudup as Dr. Manhattan, and certainly not Jeffrey Dean Morgan as The Comedian, whose visit to Moloch was the only thing I felt the film did better than the comics. The soundtrack would make for a good CD, but some of it is utterly nonsensical and bizarre, and I'm surprised that the scene which has attracted most of the negative attention in this regard is Cohen's "Hallelujah" playing over Dan and Laurie's sex scene. At least the song fits with the content of the scene, and the psychology at play, as opposed to most of the other uses of songs in the film.
Also, since much of the screenplay is taken directly from the comics, "Watchmen" isn't a badly-written film, although some of the additions made to the dialogue are absolutely horrendous on every level, and it is a little structurally messy (again, the idea that you can film a comic is totally nonsensical and not cinematic in the slightest, and this extends to the writing as well). Still, looking at Sam Hamm's script, which might have been made at one point, one can't help but be grateful that the masses have been exposed to some of the quality of the comics, and to these characters, although there is not enough room for proper characterization in this cut of the film, and some of that was sacrificed. Perhaps the film is a lesser achievement than that first trailer which kept copies of "Watchmen" flying off the shelves for months before the release of this film, and exposed so many new readers to the excellence of Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons' work.
Perhaps the ultimate irony is that the "Watchmen Motion Comics" DVD which is now available, and endorsed by WB, is almost as cinematic as this film. Snyder films the comics, has actors say the lines, and adds slow motion here and there, and some truly atrocious and ill-advised scenes of violence. "Watchmen Motion Comics" is six hours long, but is the entire comic, including "Tales of the Black Freighter", slightly animated. Lips move, the wind blows, stuff like that. It would be considered quite bad if released to theaters as an animated adaptation of "Watchmen" but the real tragedy here is that this film is the live action equivalent of the motion comics, and if you want to watch "Watchmen" instead of reading it, that would be the better approach because everything is covered, and because, absurdly enough, it's got a better musical score! "Watchmen" is not absolutely atrocious, and certainly not as bad as "The Spirit" or a couple of other recent comic book adaptations, thanks mostly to the enjoyable story and the excellent performances, but it is hugely disappointing, largely due to the ineptitude of the simplistic direction, as well as the pointless additions, which clash with the tone of the film. The opening credit sequence is quite fun, though. It's worth seeing once, twice for the extended edition, but that's about it.