It's not as good as the comic, but what could be?

Rating: 7/10 (21 October 2010)

Adapted from perhaps the greatest comic book story ever told, Watchmen needs to be reviewed on two separate levels.
For those of you who have never read the comic, this movie is long, extremely violent and displays more male nudity than most porno films. It asks you to imagine an alternate reality where people back in the 1940s really did start to dress up in costumes and beat the snot out of criminals, becoming a significant aspect of American culture. It then asks you to accept the creation of a second generation of heroes in the 60s, complete with a nuclear superman who can manipulate matter and energy with his merest thought. Then it asks you to embrace an aging Richard Nixon who is still President in 1985 with the U.S. and the Soviet Union on the brink of nuclear war and someone killing costumed crime-fighters.
That's a whole lot of suspension of disbelief to swallow and if you're not willing to gulp it down, you'll probably not enjoy this film. As the underlying plot moves in fits and starts, it spends a lot of time examining this alternate reality, its history and the sort of people crazy enough to become masked vigilantes. I f you can choke down your disbelief, you'll find Watchmen to be one of the more interesting movies you've ever seen. It will probably take you at least 2 or 3 viewings to notice every little detail included in almost every frame. Though I'm certain you'll notice the blue penis right away.
For fans of the original comics, this movie is a mixed bag at best. The filmmakers do an admirable job of taking the basic plot and main characters and getting them on screen without messing things up too terribly. When adapting a work as complex as Watchmen, it's incredibly easy to make a mistake about what to take out, what to leave in and what to change, ending up with something embarrassingly bad. That hasn't happened with this movie and, in fact, the opening credits are remarkable in how they capture so much of the essence of the comic.
Unfortunately, those opening credits are the closest the film gets to that essence. Most of the movie resembles what was in the comic, but it's just a bit off. The best example is that the Dan Dreiberg of this film is not fat. The character is close to what he was in the comic in other respects but a Dan Dreiberg who isn't fat, isn't Dan Dreiberg. There's a lot of stuff like that which could really drive you up the wall if you let it.
On the positive side, Jackie Earle Haley is great as Rorschach, Billy Crudup captures the human inhumanity of Doctor Manhattan and Patrick Wilson gets the rest of the non-fat Nite Owl II right. I don't think Jeffery Dean Morgan is nearly seedy enough to be The Comedian, but your mileage may vary. They did change the ending, but I'm not sure that really accomplishes anything. It does give the audience one less unbelievable thing to accept, but it doesn't make any more sense or work any better than the comic ending. In fact, when you consider the point Alan Moore was trying to make with the comic ending, it's probably quite a bit worse.
Whether you like this film or not, I hope it encourages people to read the original comic. And it certainly gives us fans an excuse to read it again. I suppose that's not such a bad legacy for any Hollywood adaptation to have.