Can barely be called a movie at all

Rating: 8/10 (10 March 2009)

More aptly, "An Experience" (as a friend pointed out during the end credits)...
Opening Night with 3 friends: One knew NOTHING of the film or book (had seen the trailer, that's all) and expected this to be like X-Men (boy was he in for a shock!), one was an old-school fan, like myself, and one (his girlfriend) was newly introduced to the book and had read it a few weeks before the film's release.
I was mostly worried about how my uninitiated friend (who was expecting the X-Men) would react. I was nervous throughout the film - especially during the more wordy scenes - that he would not like it or not understand it. This guy is a Truck Driver. Mostly into horror movies like the new Halloween and Devil's Rejects and he liked 300. So he really digs hardcore violence, action and gore and isn't usually so big on story. However, one of his favorite movies is No Country For Old Men, so I knew there was hope! :)
Well, he says he loved it! He realized about 10 minutes in that this was not going to be anything like he expected. He changed viewing modes from "sit back and enjoy the popcorn" to "pay attention, this is deep and important." My other two friends loved it too. The girlfriend is the one who said, "This is one of those few movies where you want to walk out, buy another ticket, and go right back in to watch it again." And "This is hardly like a movie and more of An Experience".
She's right. Absolutely. But I'm not sure I embrace it whole heartedly. Part of me thinks it would have been better if it was in fact more like a movie and less like a graphic-novel put to screen.
For one, there was far too much dialog and not enough emotion or "acting". While Rorschach, Manhattan and Dan/Night Owl were great, Laurie and Veidt were hardly watchable. Really!
Laurie was played as a shallow, naive, sex-dependent, childish brat. Granted, she was never that exciting in the book but I would have preferred a more interesting character than a shallow facsimile of the graphic novel.
Veidt played as a monotone, emotionless, brainiac villain. He never seemed convinced of his own convictions and always appeared to be bored out of his mind.
The scenes with Dr. Manhattan (especially on Mars) were far too stuffed of dialog. The movie could have been cut down 20 minutes if more time was spent showing emotion and less on exposition and pointless dialog. Did we really need to hear philosophical exposition on quantum mechanics and physics? While it might have worked in the book (I had to force myself NOT to skip over it to get to "the good stuff") it could have been avoided in the film, replaced with music and the flashbacks. Did we need more?
One very minor gripe is the need to call the group "Watchmen". I was hoping that Dan's line in the trailer was the only time we would hear it, but I counted 5 times, spoken by Dan, Rorschach and Veidt. So it's not just a subtle line thrown in but a part of the story. No more "Crime Busters" (which was intended to sound silly).
And then there's the "old" makeup. Unforgivably bad. Gawd Awful! Just plain amateurish. Seriously, how they could get so much right on the visual side, but completely drop the ball on makeup is beyond me. And since I'm not alone in spotting it (Garth Franklin, etc) it's more than just a minor annoyance.
My final complaint would be the overly exaggerated action scenes - particularly during the finale at Antarctica. These guys are SUPPOSED to be normal humans. NOT real superheros. That's part of the point and it's completely lost during the last battle sequence. People are thrown 10 feet in the air, smashing pieces of concrete without pause. It really just looked ridiculous. Like one of the old Batman movies or worse the Batman TV show. All we lacked was the "Wham!" and "Pow!" blurbs.
One complaint I have heard which I can NOT AGREE with is that the music was terribly bad. That the songs almost never matched the scenes. This is so completely wrong that I wonder why one would even suggest it. To me everything worked so well I was absolutely stunned. I was skeptical about the music going in but agreed with every single piece I heard. All the songs worked perfectly with their scenes, from Simon and Garfunkel to Jimmy Hendrix to Philip Glass. Absolute, pure Genius!
So why do I rate the film 7/10 with so many complaints? Really, I did like the film and could write more good about it than bad. But so many other reviewers have done that and better than I could. I agree with much of what has been said. The main point in its favor is what my friend said when we walked out. It's unlike ANY movie I have ever seen before. It's more of an "experience" - one that should be repeated as many times as possible in the ideal format of the Big Screen. Preferably, I presume, on Imax (we don't have one in Norway).
EDIT: After a couple weeks I have increased my rating to 8/10. It really grows on me over time. It may even go up more but for now I think 8 is the right score.