A tough pill to swallow, Watchmen will have you choking and gasping for air as the third act rolls around.

Rating: 4/10 (6 March 2009)

In any sort of entertainment, you need to finish strong. Your song, speech, video game, movie, television show needs to finish out on top, wrap things up nicely---whether optimistically or pessimistically. Methods of entertainment can start slow, maybe even build slow, but should not, at any given moment finish slowly or in a weak matter. Watchman unfortunately fails to do this; and it's worse considering that the subject matter is such a highly-acclaimed one. While Watchman was a tough pill to swallow in the beginning and the middle, it becomes unbearably awful in the final act, and quite frankly demolishes any chance of this matching up to the comic book we so love.
Watchman is about a retired group of superheroes coming together after the murder of one of their own, The Comedian. With the silent investigation headed by Rorschach (Jackie Earle Haley), he reveals that the murder is part of something much bigger than just a random act of violence. In the meantime, the other superheroes are having a lot of trouble adapting to real life after their fame and fortune passed; while the United States is inches away from nuclear war. The themes explored here and unlike that of the typical comic book fare; themes of fate, God, destiny, war, apocalypse, and sacrifice are crucial to the entire plot and throughout the film remain a hot topic. David Hayter and Alex Tse had the tough job of being able to translate the massive comic book into film within a suitable running time.
Let's at least praise the effects. While a blue male bearing it all dozens of times isn't exactly to my liking, the special effects in Watchmen are indeed quite spectacular. While it lacks the visual style and edge of 300 or Sin City, they remain a sight to see. The highly stylized fights aren't as lengthy as Zack Snyder's previous comic adaptation, but are still fun to watch. The hits, strikes, and beatdowns are especially gruesome, cringe-worthy in some instances. Zack Snyder knows what keeps his audience riveted and sprinkles a few nasty fights from time to time to keep us on our toes.
The acting itself is grand as well, especially that of Jackie Earle Haley, who plays Rorschach. Not only is his character the best fleshed-out character, but also is the one that steals the spotlight the most with good delivery, funny one-liners, and more raw emotion than any other actor and actress on screen. Everyone else did a respectable job, although some of the extras are laughable when they shouldn't be.
Watchmen's downfall is definitely the complexity of it all. While a complex story is riveting most of the time, you must be able to guide the audience in a certain direction so that it doesn't look like the film is suffering a seizure and is mixing up the chronological order like shuffling of cards. The pacing of the film is extremely slow, and likes to reach into the past without giving you a hintage of warning. It becomes lingering and even annoying at times, although it does develop the main characters a bit more. The pacing is uneven because quick-paced fights are blending in with the slow scenes of excessive dialogue, backstory, and character progress. With the exception of Rorschach, there is little to care about, we don't feel much of a connection with the characters. Snyder did a decent job explaining a lot in a few moments (See the opening credits) but then adds unnecessary scenes and elongated scenes.
Then comes the third act. The entire film falls apart like a bad game of Jenga. The pacing totally grinds into a halt, the ending comes much too slowly, nothing is explained, no emotions will come out of you, there are unnecessary fights, and quite frankly we the audience just flat-out stopped caring for anyone. Literally, you'd have to have extensive knowledge of the comic book in order to have a better appreciation of the whole body of work itself. However, it's a flaw for us as an audience to have to do research in order to receive full enjoyment out of a film. People started walking out of the theater, people start squirming more in their seats, and as the credits rolled, silence filled the cinema.
Bottom Line: In order to watch the Watchmen and actually care, you must read Watchmen. It sounds very obvious, but The Dark Knight is a well-accepted and loved film, and I can guarantee you that most of the viewers hadn't honesty read a Batman comic book. The difference is we cared for Batman and his companions. In this case, we honestly don't, because they tried explaining so much, and chose the wrong things to explainleading to characters with weak and little development, unnecessary scenes, and a lack of connection with our heroes. The themes are explored but not fully fleshed out, the plot itself is accurate but also lacks a true interpretation, and the final act just damages the entire film.
Zack Snyder has the energy to make comic books scream to life with entertainment (as proved in 300) but just didn't end Watchmen well at all. The ending may alienate some, but will frustrate more. 150+ minutes is long enough, no need to make it worse by dragging it by its knuckles. Beware of slow pacing and a very convoluted, complicated plot that will require previous knowledge, multiple viewings, and lot of patience.
Then a tolerance for disappointment.