Another example that 1:1 adaptations of comic books don't work

Rating: 6/10 (11 March 2009)

I would love to give "Watchmen" a better rating than I did. I really would.
All the love for detail, the great casting (except for Matthew Goode whose mumbling clearly betrays portraying the "smartest man in the world"), you can see how much effort went into the attempt to create an exact adaption of the graphic novel.
But that's also the problem I see in this movie. The dialogue seems artificial and campy at times. Some of the best lines, this movie has to offer are in moments when Snyder lets his writers step away from the novel. ("I'm not locked in here with you! You're locked in here with me!") It was just painful for me to watch the movie constantly returning to the back-story of the characters when I longed for development in the main plot. Even in the end, a secret in one of the character's back-story is revealed, that is of absolutely no interest, because of the main plot's magnitude.
As I said: I'd love to rate this one better. Just for the guts to make it. But that would betray the feeling I had when watching the movie an afterwards. And that was mostly boredom. Mixed with disappointment.