I should have walked out. I hate you Snyder!!

Rating: 1/10 (7 March 2009)

I'm smack in the middle of the demographic audience for this movie. Never in my life have I wanted to bash a movie quite like this. Watchmen is so into itself, every shot so 'artistic', so self-conscious, so over-the-top, it almost brings down the "I'm not your typical comic-book villain" fourth wall.
PACING: Slow slow slow - I knew something was I miss when the sappy opening credits would never end. No plot. No direction. Just an extended music video. The audience was wondering when the movie would end. People got frustrated and left at the one hour mark. People were still leaving 10 minutes before the movie ended (thankfully). We often complain about how character development gets quashed by the plot these days. This is just the reverse and fares worse. Flashbacks by the thousands pop on the screen just when you think you can pack up your stuff and leave. By the time the "climax" shows up, you don't care about any of these characters. Just please blow up the Earth and end the movie for us all!
MESSAGE: Superheros are fallible - got it. Mankind must work things out for themselves - got it. The Comedian was far from perfect. Got it. To enforce this point way over the edge was the brutal rape scene and pregnant woman getting shot. Double check. Was it necessary to spend 2 hours and 45 minutes of my life to hammer this in? See pacing above.
CRITICS: I'm utterly convinced Warner Bros. has paid off the critics to review this movie positively. This is totally out of character for Roger Ebert to give four stars - his reviews I've always enjoyed reading but I question his ability to review movies after this piece of trash is considered a masterpiece (cough! cough!). The two Bens (err, Boneheads) of At The Movies loved it. Seriously, did Warner Bros. deliver a briefcase full of cash or was the money transfered from a Swiss bank account? I want to know!
USER REVIEWS: The early user reviews love it and most have read the graphic novel. Sorry, for I have not lived not having even heard of the novel. With so much money invested in this film, it's very possible for Warner Bros. to pay 1000 monkeys on 1000 typewriters to review this film favorably. Never in my life have I hated a movie so much. Bring on Godzilla or Pauly Shore's Jury Duty any day - and I thought those were awful. This movie falls into TMNTS (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Syndrome) where there is so much hype and love for the source material (in 1990 it was TMNT comics, cartoon series, action figures, video games), people feel the need to see this movie and love it no matter how ground chuck it is.
VISUAL EFFECTS: Impressive, yes. Popsicle Blue Man. Impressive, yes. Dark, depressing, uninspiring art direction. Impressive, no. And with no story to tie it together - just one big CGI portfolio.
HUMOUR: I chuckled a few times (especially Rorchash keeping score in the prison scene), but most of the jokes fell utterly flat. It was so painfully obvious the filmmakers were going for a quick, funny payoff at times, but the packed theatre was totally silent. Even the giggly teenagers sat silent.
VIOLENCE: I do not think weaving the shooting of JFK into the opening credits was very mature at all. This was a real event that happened and to make this tragedy into some graphic popcorn fun is insulting to society's morality (if we have any after this movie's release). Another scene that made the audience cringe was the brutal rape scene. Violence for the sake of violence is just tacked on. It never served a real purpose.
MUSIC: Just to enforce what decade we're in, we have 'period' music to sledgehammer it into the audience, like 99 Luftballoons. This is why I can't watch Cold Case. You set the time period by smart scripting, set decoration, costumes, film style. Period music is a cheap gimmick. I like music selections themselves (I have many on my iTunes), but their placement is wrong wrong wrong.
PREDICTABILITY: Like three prison dudes are really going to tear cloth-face apart, as if. We already know what will happen to them. The one-liners are predictable. Sex in the WatchMobile - saw it coming (no pun). The action scenes are predictable. Plays like a juvenile video game. Yawn.
HAPPY FACE: I hope Wal-mart sues Warner Bros for copyright infringement and they both annihilate each other which would be much more entertaining than this movie.
MPAA RATING: This is not directed at the filmmakers, but to all the stupid parents out there who don't seem to understand what 18A means. We had 4 and 6 year-olds sitting behind us. Were all the babysitters booked that night? Message to babysitters worldwide: Mississauga, Ontario needs you!!
What was the point of this movie? At least the super girls were nice to look at. For that, I give one star.