It really grows on you

Rating: 9/10 (2 October 2009)

I have to admit...it took me a while to grow to appreciate this movie. I knew next to nothing about it before I went to see it, except that it was "a superhero movie". I was very tired when I saw it in the cinema, semi-slept through a part of it, and the projector broke down to even further disturb my viewing. As such, I really didn't know what to think about it, except that I liked the general idea well enough to try reading the graphic novel (which is an absolute masterpiece) that it is based on.
Some months later I saw the director's cut, and now I can say with certainty that this is an excellent movie, both as an adaptation and on its own right.
The Watchmen graphic novel is extremely complex, and of course some things had to be altered and left out to even turn it into a very long movie. The good news is that, for once, that very little essential things are left out, and the alterations (i.e. the ending) are mostly for the better. It still does justice to the source material, and it works as a movie. A rare combination.
On its own right, Watchmen is a very dark, very dreary, but also occasionally very funny movie. Make no mistake, this is nothing like standard superhero movies, in fact it aims to deconstruct the super hero myth, by showing them as very flawed and/or outright evil, and poses interesting questions about how far people are allowed to go when taking matters into their own hand and how far one is allowed to go for "the greater good". Like "The Dark Knight", this is actually a superhero movie with depth and significance.
Also, this is a very violent and depressing movie, and this is one of my minor gripes. While the novel is also pretty violent, a lot of things that are implied in the novel are shown much more explicitly in the movie, which only detracts from the deeper themes and feels very gratuitous. It's not "300 Part 2", thank god, but it's still a bit too much.
Secondly, not all of the characters are that well played. While most of the actors do an OK job and while the Rorschachs character is an instant classic, there are some dud performances, most notably the Silk Spectre II (utterly clueless) and the Comedian (far too much over the top for his own good).
"Watchmen" will not be for everybody. It's one of the most mature mainstream movies in years, and it goes utterly against the stereotypes we expect of action movies. It's also sports some less than stellar performances and a bit too much gratuitous violence. But it's also a beautifully shot movie full of interesting ideas and characters, and a successful adaptation of an "unfilmable" classic