Cant get much closer to the book

Rating: 9/10 (10 March 2009)

Since I read the book first its hard not to review the movie without comparing it to how close it was to the original. So I'm not sure how I would review it had I never read it. The book did not blow me away when I read it, but I thought the murder-mystery story was interesting and had some cool characters and an original spin on the lives of comic book heroes. Just seeing things like the comedians death, owl ship and Dr. Manhattan brought to life almost exactly like the book was pretty amazing. I am glad they went with unknown actors so audiences do not focus on what star is in the role and take away from the believability of the characters. For the most part the actors were convincing, especially Rorschach, with the voice and visual effects ended up being way cooler than what I would have thought. The films visual effects were top notch which made me wonder why they didn't spend as much time on the horrible Nixon makeup. Aside from the Minutemen, the costumes were made to look a little more modern and I believe the change was good, since the original designs were a little ridiculous looking even for the time period. As for the music, I personally am not a fan of folksy protest songs that made up a large part of the soundtrack, but I guess they were appropriate for the mood the director wanted to set for what was going on at the time. I also feel the movie should have been NC 17 with a lot of unnecessary nudity and very brutal violence which was in the book, but not to that extent. To me the ending explanation was more believable than the space squid, which just would have been silly looking after going through this serious story line for 2.5 hrs. The director said he wanted to make this movie before someone ruined it and by pretty much copying the look & dialog of the book word for word this really cant get any closer.