A pleasant surprise, though it's flaws are quite glaring.

Rating: 8/10 (29 July 2009)

I did not think Zack Snyder could pull of Watchmen. Dawn of the Dead was... OK, but nothing special. 300 was an overrated pile of crap. It should've been entitled "Testosterone: The Movie." Plus it's "style" of slowing down and speeding up time was overdone to the point you couldn't call it a style. I still queued up in line to see the film, but I went in expecting the worst. My wife and my brother were a little more enthusiastic, though they had not read the graphic novel. I came out of the theater with a pleasant feeling, I had proved myself wrong. Zack Snyder could adapt The Big Joke and he did it well. That's not to say its flawless. It has a few problems, and they are quite glaring.
Firstly, but without spoilers, the ending. If you haven't read the graphic novel, you won't notice the change. The change is only a little tweak, but if you've read the graphic novel, it will seem like a big tweak and it didn't seem.. fair, to say the least. It didn't fit the theme, and it caused some contradictions in the overall product.
Secondly, the acting. While Jackie Earle Halie pulls of Rorschach brilliantly, masked and unmasked, the others are fairly mediocre. Malin Akerman and Patrick Wilson are OK, but they don't seem to put much effort. The worst though falls into the hands of Billy Crudup. His acting as Dr. Manhattan is so poor that it actually ruins and changes the character in a crucial way. Rather than being the tortured soul trying to hide his emotions from humanity, he's simply an emotionless machine spouting out theories. The only bit where his character showed his true face was when he was on Mars telling the story of Jon Osterman and the creation of Dr. Manhattan, here Crudup's calm voice actually fits, and you get a small feeling of emotion from the silent puppets in the phantasmagoria of his past, all set to a moving and eerily haunting ensemble of Phillip Glass's "Prophecies" and "Pruit Igoe." Matthew Goode is rarely seen as Ozymandias, and he's like the others, he's decent but doesn't put much oomph. The rest of the cast fills out nicely though.
Thirdly, Zack Snyder's "Style" rears its ugly head once again. The man clearly has a penchant for violence and misogyny, as well as slow-motion. While he thankfully doesn't over play the Slowmo/Fastmo thing quite as much as he did in Testosterone: The Movie, he still did it at seemingly pointless places. He also liked to give rather close up shots of the violence, when Adrian Veidt's assassin takes his shots, Zack Snyder makes sure we get a drawn out segment in which, rather than focusing on the fact that there's an assassin with crappy aim in the room, he focuses on the fact that a woman gets her fingers blown off! Or how about the fat guy who gets a bullet to the head! That's more important than the assassin going after a majour character, right? It also seems that time slows whenever a female character pulls her breasts out, even a random stand in on the street slows down time just so her breasts can be on screen a little longer. The sex scene between Silk Specter and Nite Owl is also dragged on a little too long, and the worst part is other than a small funny touch, it's not erotic or interesting in any way. The actors couldn't look like they were enjoying it if they tried.
Despite these problems, the film plays out much like the comic book, while it doesn't have any tales from the black freighter or segments from Under the Hood, I didn't expect them too. It would be rather hard to condense those into a film. However, the style and groundwork set in the comics was faithfully recreated. The shots were done well enough that it really was like the graphic novel coming to life, and as someone familiar with the graphic novel most his life, I could spot where each issue would begin and end. The cyclic motif of the comics is carried very well, and just like the comics it is not bound by linear time. Ultimately, it plays out very well and when Zack Snyder isn't wanking slow-mo and fast-mo, the films style is pronounced and beautiful. Seeing the film on an Imax screen was quite a visual treat. This is not a complaint, I for one think that the length helped the film, but if you are an impatient viewer: Watchmen is not for you. The theatrical version clocks in at 2 hours and 46 minutes, and if you watch the ultimately superior Director's Cut on DVD, it's a sizable 3 hours. The length is probably the films best attribute in my eyes, as it allows them to tell the story properly, but I do know some people who are weary of such lengthy films.
It was nice to see Watchmen faithfully recreated on screen. I didn't think they could do it, but they proved me wrong. That's not to say it's perfect, but I don't think there ever can be a "perfect" adaptation of Watchmen. They did their best, and even my brother and wife who had yet to read the graphic novel, enjoyed it just as much, if not more, than I did. Whether you've read the graphic novel or not, Watchmen is an incredible picture. It's flaws may glare in this critics eyes, but the film makes up by being worth more than the sum of its parts. Stunning, well told, and mostly well made, Watchmen is one of the greatest films based on a Graphic novel (Not counting comic books, such as Batman. There is a difference people!) ever.