WOW...... ,but.....

Rating: 8/10 (11 March 2009)

Stepping away from my first viewing of Watchmen, the impression I have is of many, many memorable moments with high emotional impact, of an intricate, dark and challenging story dense with sub-plots, and of a grim picture of the emotional alienation implicit in being a costumed superhero.
This film is punctuated by moments of over-the-top graphic violence and graphic sex, and breaks ground with its many minutes of full frontal male nudity. The ugly violence and sexuality of its super-hero characters (the Comedian, Rohrshach, the first Silk Spectre, etc.) is breath-taking but definitely makes this a film that is not for the kiddies.
But I also came away shaking my head at some of the Watchmen's flaws. First, the musical "score" of Watchmen is atrocious. Rather than writing some original music to highlight some of the drama, tension and action, we are subjected to a lazy selection of inelegant '60s rock songs at very high volume. A musical score can make a great film much better or it can defeat it -and I feel that this musical score deeply injures the Watchmen. Graphical novels offer no meaningful guidance on the use of music to heighten drama - the Watchmen's director and creative team was on its own in this regard and the result is El Stinko.
Secondly I wish the acting had been better. I honestly did not believe a single line spoken by the young Silk Spectre (Number 2) and I even found the Comedian to be unconvincing.
Lastly, the costuming was below my expectations. All of the costumes were unflattering and inelegant. The choice of materials and textures just seemed all wrong to me. Just my personal opinion.
I have been a fan of Watchmen since its original publication as a 12-issue maxi-series in 1982. I don't agree with the critics who say this is a bad movie or a bad adaptation -there is simply too much here that is stunningly good. But the lazy musical scoring, the poor costuming and some instances of bad acting prevent me from giving this movie a 10.