Review of Watchmen (2009) by Cheyne L — 22 May 2013

I loved the beginning of this and the images we saw during the credits, but after that I thought it went downhill. I didn't like the arrangement of the current story and the backstories. The music choices were all really, really weird and seemed out of place, and the slow-mo was used incredibly too much. Parts were laughable when they shouldn't have been. I thought it was overly preachy and way too long, and after a while I just didn't care about what was happening. There were only two characters I was even interested in, and they were the only two who seemed to have any common sense at the end of the film. The amount of blood in this movie rivaled a Quentin Tarantino film, not that it bothered me in particular, but I found this to be one of the heavier R rated movies I've seen in a while, and I was kind of surprised it didn't manage to get an NC-17 rating, despite how high profile it is.

On the good side, I thought the visual effects were stunning; it was a beautiful looking movie. Nite Owl II was adorable and Rorshach's badassery never ceased to make me smile. Dr. Manhattan's backstory was set-up perfectly and was the only moment in the film where I was really concerned and touched. His narration over his story worked very well, and really made that sequence the best in the film for me. Other than that, I was pretty annoyed by this movie; I really tried to like it, because it looked like it was going to be amazing and I've heard really good things from people whose opinions I usually trust, but it just wasn't for me.