Watchman: An Authoritative Comic Book Perspective Review

It was okay.

It would have benefited from an original score. Hearing Bob Dylan over footage from both the forties and the eighties was a little disorienting... and Flight of the Valkyries while Dr. Manhattan microwaves the Vietnamese was a little too funny to be impactful.

They cut out two of the best pages in the book (Rorschach literally snapping fingers in the bar) but otherwise remained pretty faithful. Most of the dialog was ripped straight from the comic and (unlike Sin City) it was well-delivered by the actors. Reading Watchmen, one got the sense that even if you missed Alan Moore and Dave Gibbon's symbolism or parallels, you knew that they were there for a reason. It's complexity gives you a reason to keep reading it every five or ten years. But when you watch Zack Snyder's Watchmen, it feels a little like listening to a cover band. It is like greatness, but not greatness.

Great performances by the actors whose names I don't know playing Rorschach and Nite-Owl. Didn't like the effete twit cast as Veidt (Snyder seems to have conflicting issues with homosexuality) or Silk Spectre in general, but whether that was the acting or the directing is hard to tell. She was the only one who didn't have eighties hair. As the only female character, she was given the most dramatic cosmetic overhall that made me feel like I'm supposed to masturbate to her, not think of her as an actual woman with feelings as she goes from dating an emotionless god to pathetically normal guy.

Oh, and I don't care that they changed the ending.