A nice illustration for a great book

Rating: 7/10 (23 August 2009)

If you are going to make a movie based on a great novel which you love you have two ways to go. First, you can try to follow the text as close as you can and create an illustration. This is what Zack Snyder has done in Watchmen. There is also another way, which is to recreate everything from zero and push beyond the limits of the original. A very risky approach which the fans would most likely condemn. Andrei Tarkovsky did it with the Roadside Picknick (a great science fiction novel by Strugatsky brothers) to create his Stalker. And this is to me the main difference: In Stalker we have an ingenious new creation while Watchmen is only a perfect illustration.
After saying all this I can mention that Snyder's picture is of a very high quality, the acting is very good (especially, Jackie Earle Haley as Rorschach and Patrick Wilson as Nite Owl), and the soundtrack is quite extraordinary. I would give it 8 if it would not have little mess with the ending.