Review of Watchmen (2009) by Joe M — 30 Jun 2013

The graphic novel, Watchmen by Alan Moore is one of my favorite books and one of the best graphic novels ever written, if not the best. It is a groundbreaking piece of literature gold that deserves to be worshiped. Yes, I just recently read the book and I missed this in theaters. But I know now how all those poor soles walking into the theater one night with their personal Watchmen copy in hand just awaiting this monumental adaptation to flash before their eyes feel. It does not feel very good.

I'm going to level with you, Watchmen wasn't awful. It was actually a pretty decently filmed movie. That meaning it looked great. Zack Snyder really has a talent for visual thrills because this looked beautiful. It had that Dark Knight look to it, but it had that polished and gleaming flare to it also. Snyder has style, and if only he can get a good script to go with it and he could be legendary.

Watchmen also had something else that blew me away. It has the best opening titles I have ever seen. They play out after the first scene and they aren't your normal opening credits just showing the people behind it. They do show that, but behind a series of slow-mo scenes where it's telling you all about the world your about to delve into. It shows the whole back story with the song The Times They Are A-Changin' playing. That is the one time in this movie that I will say the song actually fits the scene, but it did.

Now time to talk about all of the faults. I thought the music choices were bad. The choices for the soundtrack were very interesting choices. The songs they chose for each scene did not fit well with what was happening on screen and as a result, it took away from the impact. This was a problem, but it wasn't the biggest problem I had with this movie. The biggest problem I had was the excessive and graphic gore throughout. It's this CG blood that flies everywhere when people are shot or hurt and it constantly comes splattering everywhere like it's Gears of War. It's comedic at certain moments and it really detracts from the scene. It doesn't even look good and that really bothered me.

In the end, Watchmen has the same problem that another adaptation had, The Great Gatsby. It is maybe a bit too faithful to the source material. I watch this movie knowing exactly whats going to happen, exactly what I will see, and even exactly what people say.They literally have line by line quotes straight from the book said in this movie, and some of the story board was taken directly from the graphic novel comic strip boxes. There's no new spin on it and it ends up just feeling like you copied off another person's school project and didn't put any real effort to call it your own.

Watchmen may be ambitious, but it sure isn't the best adaptation that the classic book could have had. That's another of the biggest problem with this movie, it has so much potential, but is squandered by the soundtrack, excessive gore, and a vision a bit too close to the source material. I really feel pity for those poor people at that midnight showing in 2009.