Note: If there's a spoiler, too bad; you probably should have seen the movie before you read this, anyhow.
Before seeing the Watchmen movie, my favorite superhero movie was Iron Man 2, with a close second as the Dark Knight trilogy. Now those are second and third, respectively. This movie has totally changed the standard by which I judge this kind of movie, though.
The Watchmen movie is good. There are all kinds of fans out there who will tell that it's not because it had to cut lots of things, but it is, on its own, good. Naturally, in the shadow of its source material, it's not as good, but compared to all the other superhero movies, it really is just a whole different level of awesome.
For the things they had to get rid of (the Tales of the Black Freighter, most of the intermittent inter-chapter material like Under the Hood), it manages to add all the more. The performance of Rorschach was astounding, and minor tweaks to Nite Owl's character made him go from alright-if-annoying to one of my favorite characters. Ozymandias wasn't quite the insufferable, needs-to-be-punched-in-the-face genius jerkass as he was in the comics, and all in all, the movie managed to adapt the characters very well. The fight scenes are spectacular, and, although the violence is sometimes cringe inducing, I think that might have been the point.
Some of my complaint of the movie is that it sometimes chose poorly for what stays and what goes. For example, the completely unnecessary sex scene between Nite Owl and Silk Spectre could have been a Sexy Discretion Shot, and we could have had more of the exchange between Rorschach and his psychiatrist, and a longer reveal on The Comedian being Silk Spectre's father. Still, the montage in the beginning is probably the greatest adaptional compression I've ever seen, and overall the quality of the entire movie is amazing. In addition, the altered ending made quite a bit more sense (not that I wasn't disappointed that there weren't any Eldritch Abomination squids), and I thought it was a better end to the movie, ultimately.
Overall, I would recommend the movie. Read the comic first, if you can, and definitely get the extended version, but it's a thoroughly enjoyable superhero movie that leaps over the normal bar entirely, which makes it awesome in my book.
The New Superhero Movie Standard
Note: If there's a spoiler, too bad; you probably should have seen the movie before you read this, anyhow.
Before seeing the Watchmen movie, my favorite superhero movie was Iron Man 2, with a close second as the Dark Knight trilogy. Now those are second and third, respectively. This movie has totally changed the standard by which I judge this kind of movie, though.
The Watchmen movie is good. There are all kinds of fans out there who will tell that it's not because it had to cut lots of things, but it is, on its own, good. Naturally, in the shadow of its source material, it's not as good, but compared to all the other superhero movies, it really is just a whole different level of awesome.
For the things they had to get rid of (the Tales of the Black Freighter, most of the intermittent inter-chapter material like Under the Hood), it manages to add all the more. The performance of Rorschach was astounding, and minor tweaks to Nite Owl's character made him go from alright-if-annoying to one of my favorite characters. Ozymandias wasn't quite the insufferable, needs-to-be-punched-in-the-face genius jerkass as he was in the comics, and all in all, the movie managed to adapt the characters very well. The fight scenes are spectacular, and, although the violence is sometimes cringe inducing, I think that might have been the point.
Some of my complaint of the movie is that it sometimes chose poorly for what stays and what goes. For example, the completely unnecessary sex scene between Nite Owl and Silk Spectre could have been a Sexy Discretion Shot, and we could have had more of the exchange between Rorschach and his psychiatrist, and a longer reveal on The Comedian being Silk Spectre's father. Still, the montage in the beginning is probably the greatest adaptional compression I've ever seen, and overall the quality of the entire movie is amazing. In addition, the altered ending made quite a bit more sense (not that I wasn't disappointed that there weren't any Eldritch Abomination squids), and I thought it was a better end to the movie, ultimately.
Overall, I would recommend the movie. Read the comic first, if you can, and definitely get the extended version, but it's a thoroughly enjoyable superhero movie that leaps over the normal bar entirely, which makes it awesome in my book.