Despite a major issue, I enjoy it spectacularly

Rating: 9/10 (11 March 2009)

I feel that plot structuring isn't one of the movie's strengths. Nothing is emphasized through appropriate cinematic language. Such as giving more running time to what is relevant to the plot, and less to what is just an enjoyable subplot. Or using a musical score to give the scenes a certain place in the movie, rather than letting every individual scene have maximum impact. It is just scene after scene after scene, without giving a sense of where it is heading at or what it wants to say.
Obviously the filmmakers wanted to keep as much from the original source as possible, while also staying as true to every little drawn image as possible. Here I have to agree with the popular criticism, this is just not how turning a comic book into an epic movie works. Now this didn't ruin my enjoyment of the movie, but here it clearly failed in a department in which I think no good genre picture should normally fail.
So for me this problem hinders the film from living up to its potential regarding the building of suspense. But why it still works for me is because I find each individual scene on its own to be tense. The sociological, scientific and philosophical ideas of the story speak so well to me that it holds my attention for the full running time and never makes me lose interest in what happens or what is going to happen.
At least the plot is adequately coherent and the characters consistent, so Zack Snyder hardly is a failure as a director, like some people suggest. Not to mention the visual effects, which apparently effortlessly were integrated into the story, and serve telling the story as well as making the film's visual style even possible. This to manage and make work, also takes considerable skill on the director's part.
It's an unusual story of epic proportions, with as epic visuals. I consider it to be a science fiction film, playing in an alternate universe and having a character like Dr. Manhattan. All the parts with Dr. Manhattan are also easily my favorite ones, because without him the story wouldn't be one of nearly such grand scale and his physical nature offers some welcome brain food concerning quantum mechanics, which is a highly unexplored subject in Sci-Fi cinema, by the way. Those are the main reasons why watching it was a great experience for me, in spite of my gripes.