the best adapation you'll get in 2.6 hours.

Rating: 9/10 (7 March 2009)

for someone who gets razzed by their friends for being too critical, this movie exceeded my expectations. i walked out of the theater thinking it was one of the best movies i had seen in a long time.
why? for one, as impossible it seemed unlikely in any big-budget movie production with so many corporate hands on any movie with a budget over $100 million, they kept spectacularly true to the original story.
the characters worked. any hesitations about things after watching the short clips made perfect sense when seeing the movie as a whole. one example: while i initially didn't like his voice on the trailer, rorschach is perfect. dr. manhattan is perfect.
and to even add some blasphemy: the ending of the movie may have been better than the original, as it gives a more solid reason for the fate of one of the characters. by the end, you truly feel for the characters...even more than i did from reading the 'graphic novel'.
so what was missing? it might be about 5 minutes too short. you don't get many shots of the after effect of the climax of the movie that shows how dramatic the ending really is to the world as a whole. the last 10 minutes seem rushed for all the spectacular events that happen. but the whole thing is as good as it can get in 2 hours and 40 minutes.
another minor annoyance is while the contemporary music serves to set the time period, as the movie spans almost fifty years with flashbacks, in some cases the director's background in schlock advertising showed through ("the sound of silence" during a funeral (even though it's set in 1985), the song during the end credits that will sound dated in about 6 months and from a band that probably won't be around in 1-2 years). the apocalypse now reference in the Vietnam scene is cheesy. and some of the violence is overdone, but this is truly a rated "r" novel and movie. but these are all the minor reasons why i gave this movie a "9" instead of a perfect, timeless "10".
overall, it is an achievement. hopefully some of the confused critics who are sick of comic book movies won't prevent people from checking out this cinematic feat. this is a great movie, certainly much better than the average critical review lets on. if they're not happy with this watchmen movie, i can't imagine what watchmen movie they would've liked. no, it's not the godfather - but i'm glad if watchmen got made into a movie, it got made right. and this is as good as a watchmen movie really could get. bravo guys, you did it.
go see it. in the theater. while you can.