the best they could do with a hard-to-adapt book

Rating: 7/10 (8 March 2009)

In an alternate version of the mid-eighties where Nixon is serving a third term, costumed heroes are outlawed, but they must unite to fight an oncoming threat. That's a shabby outline, but it's hard to summarize this plot. I read the comic book this is based on, and the adaptation turned out pretty much exactly as I expected: faithful but lacking most of the book's more subtle shadings.
Watchmen is one of those things people have long said couldn't be filmed. They were wrong, and this is about as good a job as anyone could be expected to do. But it still left me unsatisfied. It's certainly entertaining, and the movie gets the characters right (especially my favourite, Rorschach, thanks in large part to actor Jackie Earle Haley). The book is dark, moody, and ambiguous whereas this is a loud and boisterous action film. One of the main problems is that it makes every character "cool", which takes away some of the depth found in the book. It also fails to provide a proper build-up to the reveal of the "villain"'s plan (which has been changed from the book to something rather mundane). And the fight scenes are generically shot. Director Zack Snyder really needs to lose his distracting affectation of switching from slow motion to regular speed.