Entertaining and well-made, but some major issues with the plot

Rating: 4/10 (16 March 2009)

It's impossible to write a review about a movie like this without mentioning its visual aspect, so we'll get to that now. Like his films or not, it's hard to deny that Zack Snyder knows how to direct a movie and especially make it visually appealing; there's no doubt that he's a rising star in contemporary cinema. If there's one thing that even detractors of Watchmen have to admit, it's that this film looks GOOD! And by good I mean absolutely drop-dead gorgeous. The production/set and costume design both exquisitely capture the comic book feel of the movie, but keep it dark and gritty, like it's supposed to be. It's highly stylized, but this is more like the evil twin brother version of Dick Tracy rather than like Dick Tracy itself. The special effects are, for the most part, top-notch, and Dr. Manhattan in particular serves as yet another example in the ever-improving motion capture technology, used so well in The Lord of the Rings but with mixed results since. With an exquisitely expert ability to know exactly where to place the camera and how to move it, light the scene and utilize special effects, Snyder is definitely turning out to be one of the most visually talented directors of his generation. Although his work so far has been as glossy and commercial as it gets, it's impossible to say that the man isn't creative, or that his films aren't works of art.
While I immensely enjoyed and appreciated the film's thoroughly in-depth development and portrayal of its fascinating characters, rich back story and the whole Watchmen mythology in general, I still had some fundamental aspects with the actual plot, specifically with the third act. Without giving too much away, I will humbly ask how many times have we seen the "twist"/character revelation that initiates the finale/confrontation at the end of the film? It's an old, tired plot technique that we've seen countless times before, and almost takes away from the wonderfully high quality of the first two thirds of the film. Speaking of the ending, I think it would be appropriate to address the major issue amongst fans of the graphic novel regarding the finale. Again, without giving too much away, I have been informed about the nature of the finale as it appears in the original comic by friends of mine who HAVE read it, and although there seemed to be a pretty big controversy amongst die-hard fans irrationally demanding precise and total accuracy and adherence to the source material, in my opinion, Zack Snyder made a very wise decision in changing the ending. In essence It's the same and serves the same purpose, but although the film had its fair share of supernatural and fantastical elements, mainly in the Dr. Manhattan character, all of them worked and made sense in the context of the film, and I feel that had Snyder gone with the original ending, it would have thrown the film into an entirely different direction in terms of its supernatural elements and would have been totally out of place. In general, there were a few aspects of the film that really polarized me. I thought that the best scene was actually the opening credits sequence, featuring an incredibly well-made and gorgeous looking collage of still and moving images depicting the historical setting and history of the Watchmen/Minutemen and of some of the characters, all combined in different layers with the camera sweeping through them, while Bob Dylan croons "Oh the times they are a-changin'" on the soundtrack. On the other hand, I absolutely hated the scenes with Richard Nixon, and felt that his make-up was ridiculously over-the-top and completely out of place. I know that Snyder was just trying to capture the essence of the exaggerated, caricature-version of Nixon as he appears in the comic book, but it was just so preposterous that it completely took me out of the film.
Big, event, blockbuster movies have never been the same since we entered the internet age. Unlike the blockbusters of the past  Star Wars, E.T., Batman, Jurassic Park  which we knew nothing about prior to their release except what the posters and trailers showed us, now audiences seem to know every little detail about a movie's content and production months before it is even released. The internet is not only an incredible advertising tool, what with hype and anticipation for movies increased tenfold with the help of internet message board chatter and word-of-mouth, but is also an unlimitedly powerful source of pressure, pressure on filmmakers, directors, producers and everyone involved in these projects to meet fan expectations and stick to the beloved source material, whatever it may be. Many projects recently seem to attempt to stay closer and closer to the source material, usually comic books in this case, with mixed results. Watchmen seems to fit somewhere in between the two camps of The Incredible Hulk and The Dark Knight. On the one hand, it benefits from sticking to its source material, Snyder having chosen not to skim over any of the details and aspects of the incredibly rich mythology present in the graphic novel. On the other hand, by sticking so closely to the original comic, Watchmen suffers slightly because a graphic novel, or a novel in general, will always be far richer and contain far more details, sub-plots, and in-depth character development than a movie would ever be able to fully encompass, and so I feel that Snyder may have slightly overreached in order to be faithful to the comic keep the fans of the graphic novel, which include himself, happy. Still, it's an immensely entertaining movie, incredibly well-made, fascinating and in-depth, and although I had some major issues with the plot, I still quite enjoyed it.