The Watchmen

Hello, Darkness, my old friend. I saw you again this weekend when I went to see The Watchmen on Saturday. Ok, enough of that. Saturday after Brandon and Randy accidentally ate raw beef from the Chinese buffet we went to for lunch, we hoped over to the mall to catch the 13:45 showing of The Watchmen. I had strange feelings going into this movie; mainly I wanted the movie to be awesome, but while still doing justice to the original story.

The movie started out exactly as it should have: with the Comedian's death. From there it moved directly into what can really only be described as the best possible translation of the book into the movie. (Part of me wants to stop mentioning the book, but on second thought that would be rather impossible).

Director Zack Snyder did an absolutely excellent job of casting the characters in this film. I was most impressed with the choices of Billy Crudup, Jackie Earle Haley, and Jeffery Dean Morgan for the roles of Dr. Manhattan, Rorschach, and The Comedian respectively. I was also rather impressed with the acting since all of the characters were so thoroughly fleshed out and left no room for the actors to make them their own. This is of course something I agree with in any movie that is a direct or near direct translation of a book to a film.

In addition the effects of this movie were quite satisfactory. There was never a moment where the CGI was glaringly obvious enough to make me consciously recognize it, which is often an issue for me. Along with the effects, I was heartily impressed with the soundtrack. Each song used just felt  so deliciously appropriate, and it really helped to set the mood/facilitate the atmosphere of what was going on at any particular time in the movie.

Besides all of this, I was most impressed with the film itself. It managed to take a very complex story line, one infused with many many subtle sub-plots and by cutting out a lot of these sub stories present to us the core of the novel, and along with it the core story and all that it entails. Considering the film was only 2 hours and 45 mins long, the film managed to convey almost every essential aspect of this movie. A post film conversation made me realize that while I could definitely nit-pick this movie to death, I would rather just leave it alone and enjoy it for what it was.

A quick aside here before I throw down my final judgement: The Watchmen is NOT a comic book movie. It is not like Spider-Man, Ironman, The Fantastic 4, or even the new Batman films. This is a very mature movie, with very mature themes and very intellectual ideas. You have to pay attention to this movie from beginning to end or you will not get it, and if you do pay attention the whole time you still might not get all of it. Also, do not bring your 3 year old child to this movie. In fact, do not bring your 3 year old child to any rated R movie. It's rated R for a reason.

And one last recommendation: If at this point you haven't read the book, then just go see the movie and then read the book afterwards.

The Watchmen gets 8 Beards.