Who Watches Watchmen?

Holy Richard Nixon’s oversized nose!

I will try to keep it shorter this time.
I admit, with all the “cult-comic” movies recently, that I would choose Alan Moore (V for Vendetta; The Watchmen) over Frank Miller (300; The Dark Knight Returns) any day in matters of storytelling and characters.
I loved the introductory montage invented by the director. (Extra added attraction: Watch it here!)

I also didn’t feel that the movie was overly long, but that’s me. Now on to the parts I found objectionable:
Gore for gore’s sake. The director seemed to add severed limbs for the sole purpose of… wait, I have no idea! The comic was about masked heroes not working in real life, among other things. What does our director do then? He expands every fight scene pointlessly, and makes them a bloodbath. Ummmh… does not compute.

All the subtle humor that made me giggle in the comics about the very gentle character of Nite Owl and his gadgets is thrown out of the window, which was all too apparent in the fire rescue scene. It got mutilated; the very meaning stomped out of it. The “Spirit of ‘77” was missing altogether, which is another thing I wouldn’t want to spoil for anyone (just take the bait). While the comic supposed to show how futile masked heroes were, here we get an all-too sugar-coated ending, with the message “Oh well, wanna beat up bums tonite?”

The ending. I don’t want to spoil it, but needless to say, the movie changes the b@tshit crazy plot-twist-climax, which in retrospect worked so much better, for one that would never work, simply because while the “solution” remains the same, the “sickness” becomes all too severe for the same medicine. 

And please, please, get rid of the woman playing “Silver Specter II”. She was painful to watch. The guy playing Ozymandias also, but he was a tad bit less severe.

You might rate the movie higher if you have not read the comic beforehand; it is also possible you will rate it lower for the same reason.

Verdict: 

6/10