Who Watches the Watchmen?

Wow. So... where to begin...

After years of waiting, I finally saw the Watchmen movie today. And I'm surprised to report that I honestly have no idea whether or not this movie worked as a movie. 

Seriously. This is the first time that something I'm so familiar with has been put up on the big screen, and I have to say that I'm apparently way too close to the source material to know whether it worked or made sense or seemed cool to anyone else in the theater. I walked in knowing every plot point and nuance along the way, and ended up watching it with a very different and completely unexpected mindset: one that was almost worried about what I was about to see. It was almost like hearing a friend's band do a cover version of a song I grew up with; there was an equal mix of "Oh, cool... they're doing that with it," and "Oh, no... what if nobody likes it?"

It was stressful! Each time a key scene was ready to unfold, I was anxious about how they were going to pull it off. There were times when that feeling stuck with me longer than I would have liked, and other times when I found myself smiling like a little kid. The montage/recap during Rorschach's visit to the cemetery, for example (which remains one of my favorite parts of the book), was a lot of fun to watch and a really well played moment.

I can tell you that fans of the book will be thrilled with the look of the film; the attention to detail was nothing short of amazing. Sets, costumes and casting were pulled right off the page. I was particularly impressed watching the cover art from each issue sneak seamlessly by... a nice nod to the people in the know that didn't feel obvious and heavy-handed to everyone else. Visually, I really couldn't be happier with how faithfully the story was brought to life.

But there were definitely a few things that rubbed me the wrong way as a fan. In a few key instances, they traded smarts and subtlety for blood and gore, which was a huge disappointment. I won't spoil anything for the uninitiated, but he end of Rorschach's origin story in particular was a real let down. They took one of the more chilling and original moments in the novel and sold it short in favor of shock value (which is ironic, because the written version is actually twice as shocking and stayed with me for a long time after I'd read it). Of course, no one who hasn't read the book will notice, but it will definitely piss off a few folks who have.

Also missing for me was any real sense of impact at the story's Surprise Ending. I think a lot of this has to do with the fact that the movie wasn't able to spend any time with any of the more incidental characters along the way... the book fleshed out a lot more of the surrounding cast, so when Things Happened that effected all of them, there was a lot more weight to the proceedings. This was probably always going to be problem for the film; with such a dense story, some details simply had to be left out in order to keep the running time under five hours. But in keeping the stories of the main characters intact (which really was an impressive feat in and of itself), we lost some of the context for the consequences of their actions. It left me feeling like we'd watched events unfold from far away, which is a tough trade off.

But for all of the good and bad and things that I liked or didn't, I'm surprised to say that I'm too close to this thing to know if it worked for anyone else! We saw a lunchtime showing on opening day, and there were only about thirty people in the theater. So aside from the dude behind me saying "damn!" every time a bone was snapped (and fair warning; it happened quite a few times), I really couldn't tell how it went over with the audience. Maybe it's brilliant. Maybe it's confusing and longer than it needs to be. Maybe it's a landmark event, or maybe it's a disappointment. All I know is that I'm really happy it finally got made by a director who gives a damn, and I'm probably going to have to see it again to get my head around it.

What did you think?