Watchmen

Watchmen is a pretty good movie. It is one that I would see again, anyway. Watchmen is based on a genre-defining and defying graphic novel, and as such had been declared "unfilmable." I imagine that it was largely a group of graphic novel apologists saying this, but I'm not sure that anything is actually "unfilmable." Maybe unfilmable as a traditional Hollywood-style/structured film, but when those limitations are removed, I think anything could work on film, even Watchmen.

The movie works pretty well despite a number of flaws, especially when you consider the especially dark and not-so-much fun source material, a director with a pretty dubious track record, and a cast that features Billy Crudup as its biggest star. The film's biggest success is its soundtrack, with its roots set deep in 60's folk rock. The movie is at its best when the action is covered completely by "The Sound of Silence" or "All Along the Watchtower." When these scenes end and the actors start flapping their mouths away, the quality of the film takes a big nose dive.

The acting is all over the place. Some of the characters are perfectly cast and some are so bad that I can't think of a proper metaphor right now to express it. When you cast a movie based on looks alone, that's what you get. Seems like they should have spent less time working on Dr. Manhattan's wiggler.

However, my biggest complaint is that the violence was way over the top. I know that this is a comic book movie and the characters are super heroes, but the whole point of the book is that all but one of the superheroes are(as they say in Us Weekly) regular people, just like us . When The Comedian's head breaks through his marble counter top just to keep on a-fightin', it takes away from that message.

The end of the movie is significantly different from the end of the book, but I thought that the book worked much better. Thematically the two endings are pretty much the same, but it is much less of a wtf moment than it is in the book.

Book vs. Movie: Book

Cost Benefit Analysis: I got into the movie using one of those discount tickets people buy through work, so I only paid $6.50. This was a pretty good price, and the all of the special effects razzle dazzle makes Watchmen worth seeing on the big screen. There were not many awesome moments, though, so it's probably worth seeing for 6 bucks or less.