People will look up and shout "MAKE IT EXACTLY LIKE THE NOVEL"

Rating: 8/10 (8 March 2009)

... and i'll whisper "would you like fries with that too?"
By now we've heard it all. Based on the most celebrated graphic novel. From the visionary director of 300. Is this movie gonna be good or a pile of...well, you know. Well, the movie officially hit theaters yesterday. It's, not surprisingly, in the IMDb Top 250 and Moore faithfuls have either been saying 'its a faithful adaptation' or 'boycott this filth, it's not worth seeing.' Not to mention mega nerds arguing if its comparable to last year's The Dark Knight or Sin City.
I will say if you want to watch a movie, there is no better time than now. I mean its either this or the Jonas Brothers 3D IMAX. It's thought provoking, visually booming, well-acted, and....extremely condensed. That's hardly a surprise though. Director Zack Snyder, of Dawn of the Dead remake and 300 fame, was hellbent trying to keep this page-by-page faithful as much as he could. And for those who wish for such a thing, he did a good job for the most part. Not every scene was kept sacred though, most notably there are some action scenes thrown in there to keep the audience from getting totally bored.
Visually its stunning, so I won't go too much into that. Just know you won't be disappointed on how it looks from beginning to end. One of the things I found surprising was the action. I've never seen kung-fu moves as fast and furious in a superhero film before. While few and very far in between, they were the major highlights. The climax in particular has some of the more impressive shots I ever laid eyes on. Mind you, this is all to keep the audience's attention. There's no such depiction in the graphic novel of Rorschach karate kicking Oxy-moron (or whatever his name is) but is so damn sweet seeing it in this movie. Christopher Nolan, if you want to do another Batman: TAKE NOTES. This is what the action should've been like. Not only was it clean and fast, it was coherent. Cubby Broccoli's children should also takes notes to avoid another Quantum of Solance catastrophe.
It's also no surprise that Jackie Earl Haley as Rorschach is a match made in heaven. It's one of the most impressive "he-is-the-character" choices since Heath Ledger as the Joker. In fact I have to say he's a solid number 2. There is never a dull moment whenever he is Rorschach or the fragile Walter Kovacs. What did surprise me was Dr. Manhattan, who sports the biggest distraction in movie history. I mean wow, that's a lot of blue trouser snake. Enough to give it its own co-star mention. But *ahem*, back to the point...what I thought was one of the dullest characters in the novel was actually one of the more interesting ones in the movie. His back story was executed very well and I think it was the turning point of the movie. Before, it was getting pretty dull and slow (minus the Rorschach scenes) but once his story hit it really started to pick up. And it was a fun ride from there. Niteowl II was also a surprise, the character was delightfully entertaining to watch on screen. The audience and I laughed at his offbeat jokes and nerdiness, he was just an extremely likable character. Silk Spectre II was...hmm, alright I guess. People say she was so bad she almost killed the movie. I think that's an exaggeration. She did her part but it wasn't as compelling as her castmates. I think the worst character was Nixon. Man, every time he appeared we are taken out of the movie and me and my buds laughed our asses off. I think his nose was bigger than Manhattan's blue rocket.
Speaking of out of place, I have to mention the soundtrack. The orchestrated soundtrack was just fine but omg...in choice events, for reasons beyond me, they decided to play random classic rock tunes out of nowhere. The beginning had a Bob Dylan song (*shudder*) and when they reach the fortress in the climax they tuned in Hendrix's cover of "All Along the Watchtower" (which funnily enough is a Bob Dylan song as well). That was pretty cheesy and it took us out of the movie every time. There are two more examples i'm missing, one was an '80s pop song. If they didn't do that, the movie wouldn't have suffered. They should've put that Muse song from the trailers in there somewhere.
And to mention the story one more time, I was happy to see the climax remained the same (even if a bit simplified...obviously) including that one unhappy moment. If you're a fan, you know what it is. Everyone was bummed but it was necessary. Halfway through, the movie was a joy to watch. It's like they found the balance and kept with it. Kind of a shame it wasn't like that for the whole movie, but hey. That's the way it goes. I was thinking of giving it a low 7 but bumped it up to a higher 7, near 8, cause of that. Overall if you don't expect anything more than what it is, a movie that tries to emulate the source as much as possible, you'll think its good. It's short comings don't make it great but its accomplishments don't make it suck either.
7.6/10