Don't reward slavish graphic novel adaptations!

Rating: 1/10 (8 March 2009)

I am a movie and novel buff who has not read the book version of Watchmen. The book may be very good (friends tell me it is) but I can verify that the movie is awful. This is the problem: you fans of the book come to the movie already caring about the characters, while movie-goers depend upon the movie alone to give them a reason to care about the characters and the world they live in. (Which brings me to another problem: no one cares about saving the seamy rightwing version of the infinitely corrupt world of the 1980s. If that negative fascist fantasy dies in an explosion, good riddance. Isn't that the fulfilment of the rightist fantasy?) The movie fails mostly on this count, though there are other weaknesses. (I'm talking to you, slo-mo spacecraft sex scene.) I found myself caring only about Rohrschach (well-acted by Haley). The big blue guy did not seem to have any real dilemmas and absolutely no emotional depth, the diabolical plan of the hero-villain was obscure until it was revealed and too late to care, and nothing lost seemed worth shedding a tear for. As for the rest of the world and the characters, I just could not wait for the impending nuclear holocaust because then I would be able to go home. And I'm actually a very peaceable person who in real life doesn't wish instant vaporization on anyone. Several people left early, which I have never seen in a movie theater before. (I guess I've never been to a movie that spent this many hours being bad.) In sum, worth the money only if you love all things Watchmen and, perhaps, if you really liked Forest Gump and Moonraker. (Having said this, I could have watched a whole movie about the giant blue guy winning the Vietnam War. That scene was pretty cool.)