watching the Watchmen

[nickjong]

I normally disdain movie adaptations that adhere too closely to the source material, their conservative translations failing to yield a movie that stands on its own. Watchmen manages to pull off an extraordinarily faithful adaptation, which remains true to the original while seeming accessible to those unfamiliar with Alan Moore's original work.

Comments

[zml]

I enjoyed it. Twice. Personally, I really enjoyed it, but I had a hard time telling how accessible it was to people who hadn't read the book. I have to say, I'm eager for the extended version - they apparently let him shoot and post-produce a fair amount more footage than is in the film (including the comic-within-a-comic, for which they already have a DVD release scheduled).

My favorites were basically any scene that involved Rorschach. I thought his casting was really, really good.

[antioch523]

Rorschach was definitely the high point of the film, yes. I was a disappointed with the ending. No, not because I'm one of those "where's my giant squid?" maniacs. I just feel that Ozymandias's character/decision/cutting-the-gordian-knot didn't really come across strongly, and that the burden of the secret everyone shares at the end seemed too light.

But I was expecting awfulness, and was pleasantly surprised.

[nickjong]

Yeah, it's hard to tell just how effectively the movie conveyed its ideas; in my case it was preaching to the choir. I have some reports already that some people who saw the movie didn't even understand that Dr. Manhattan was the only one with superpowers, so I may overestimate the mainstream audience. For my purposes, the movie was enjoyable, which is far better than being execrable.