Review of Watchmen (2001) by Marcelo C — 12 Apr 2016

This movie was so wildly inconsistent that it had me bouncing between love and hate for almost 3 full hours. As a result I will take this review on a similar ride between aspects I loved and aspects I hated:

LOVE: Gorgeous visuals, many of them felt like they were plucked directly from the pages of a comic book.

HATE: This slavish commitment to keeping in line with the source material made the film somewhat difficult to get into as an outsider.

LOVE: The story, particularly the murder mystery, was fascinating and had a solid surprise ending that I didn't anticipate.

HATE: The delivery of the story was very slow and they got sidetracked a number of times in needless subplots.

LOVE: Rorschach was a great character who gave me someone to root for throughout the movie.

HATE: The Rorschach voice-over was pointless and almost laughably cliche, I swear it was there only for the final scene.

LOVE: Great nuanced performances from Jackie Earle Haley and Jeffrey Dean Morgan.

HATE: Almost every other major acting performance was terrible and unconvincing, particularly Patrick Wilson and Malin Akerman.

LOVE: The world they created was certainly an interesting and unique one that I haven't seen before.

HATE: They didn't properly set up the rules of this world to the point where I'm still puzzled whether anyone but Dr. Manhattan actually has any super-powers.

As you can see, Watchmen was a roller coaster for me. By the end I think I came out on the slightly more positive side, because a quality story trumps a lot of the negatives. However, I can't see myself wanting to watch the movie again, and surprisingly it doesn't give me the urge to seek out the graphic novel. It's one of those movies where I will always understand people's opinions no matter how positive or negative they will be because, as I've shown, I saw both sides of the argument.