Watchmen Re-Hash

I saw the film Watchmen by Zach Snyder three days ago (last Saturday, March 7) and immediately gave it a pretty harsh, negative review. At first, I really didn't know what to think. I very, very much enjoyed the movie. After a half an hour or so I started to think I liked it okay but then after a talk with my dad, who also saw the movie (but didn't read the book first), I decided I really didn't like the movie for a number of reasons. As of now, I have spoken with multiple people I know who have seen the movie and at least half of them haven't read the book (while a good amount still had). Finally, after a few interesting discussions on the book and the movie (and re-reading portions of the book and movie art book) with my good friend who first showed me the book, I have decided that I like the movie much more than I originally thought.

There are a good amount of problems with this movie (mostly, I will now say, with the portions left out of the movie) but there are also a lot of great things. Snyder decided to almost directly translate the scenes he shot from the book instead of taking the books general story and themes, tones, etc. and making that into a movie. I'm not really sure what I think of this as I have no idea how the latter would have turned out. However, I have realized that the performances of Rorschach by Jackie Earle Haley and Dr. Manhattan by Billy Crudup were actually outstanding. Also, the fight sequences were alright considering I re-read the fights in the book and found that they were quite similar, contrary to my earlier belief.

Besides for this, I am still in between loving this and being really happy about it and disliking it for obvious reasons. Every time I hear a good review I go, "Oh yeah! It was awesome because of all that." And then every time I hear a bad review I go, "Oh yeah... He did do that." So I just don't know. I don't want to praise it or trash it. Some parts were good, some parts were bad. Some actors were great, some okay, some were terrible. Some details that are included make it amazing and some are just too much. One thing that I really believe is that at least Rorschach's history should have been included more and possibly more emphasis on the Keane Act. So, anyway, whether you read the book or not you should probably go see it. But if you can, definitely read the book first! It is 100% better than the movie.