CINDERELLA, SHE SEEMS SO EASY

Watchmen is a good movie but I sort of wish I hadn't read the comic before seeing it. You might be asking why because I like the comic a lot but the answer is very simple: With one exception late in the film, it's just the comic word-for-word, event-for-event. This meant that I knew every action and plot twist before it occurred and, thus, I became disinterested at points. It almost felt as if I were watching the movie for a second time. Now, I'm sure the more hard-edged Watchmen fans will love this ultra-faithful approach (and it's clear that director Zack Synder has a great love for the comic) but, I dunno, I wanted some level of surprise or shock.

That said, if you, like most of my friends, haven't read the comic, you'll probably like this one a lot. Watchmen, for all of its minute flaws, has always had a interesting, vaguely-noir, plot and nuanced characters and the film gets that across very well. Also, I think the change that was made, although it was probably for budgetary reasons, actually makes the ending more credible, but that's just me.

Technically speaking, it's also a very well-made movie, with excellent costume design and sets that capture the look of Dave Gibbons' original comic artwork. The CGI looked good for the most part (although the glass castle on Mars looked kinda cheap), as well. And although I did get restless during the talky bits, I have to say that all of the actions scenes were first rate. The fact that the combat was varied (some of it was a bit more kung-fu, some of it was more brawling) was nice but the thing I liked the most is that it was handled skillfully. There was none of the fast-cut/shaky-cam syndrome that affects many modern action scenes; the camera stayed still so you could see all the actors' movements and the cuts were paced logically. Slo-mo was also used to good effect, if a bit too often. Say what you will about Synder's sensibilities but all three of his movies have shown that, if nothing else, he's a great action director.

In terms of acting, I thought that all of the performances were at least "good" with some being "very good" or "excellent". Jackie Earl Hayley's Rorschach might have been using the Batman-voice but it felt far more appropriate for him, and I thought the actor really captured the combination of paranoid psychopath vigilante and wounded, rejected sociopath at the heart of the character. Patrick Wilson was good as Nite Owl, although I thought that he could have been a bit more nerdy/nervous. I'm not sure how much Billy Crudup's performance has to do with the finished product of Dr. Manhattan, but I'm willing to say he was on-the-money. Matthew Goode was a little less preening/self-obsessed than I'd imagined Veidt being but I liked his aristocratic calm at everything. I loved Jeffery Dean Morgan's Comedian, he had just the right mix of weariness and belligerence. The biggest problem, acting-wise, was Malin Akerman's Silk Spectre. Now, it's clear that she got cast for her looks and willingness to dress in a stupid costume while doing fight scenes, more than anything else, but, while I certainly didn't think her performance was bad, she felt flat and nervous, emotionally.

I thought that the gore got a bit gratuitous at points. The entrails dripping off the ceiling after Manhattan explodes a group of dudes, when Rorschach kills the pedophile with the butcher knife and when the mob goon gets his arms cut off being the main examples. The Nite Owl/Silk Spectre sex scene was also a bit much.

All that said, though, I liked the movie though I wish more of it might have resembled the opening montage set to "The Times They Are A-Changin'" (speaking of which, the movie had a very good, period-appropriate, soundtrack, with the exception of the exceedingly confusing My Chemical Romance cover of "Desolation Row" which closes the film), where Synder didn't have material to work with directly from the comic book so he spring-boarded with some ideas of his own. It's very cool and makes me wish that Synder would do something original rather than word-for-word comic adaptations (he also did the movie of 300 which had a similar approach to the move from page to screen) and horror remakes (the 2005 Dawn Of The Dead, which was okay but not as good as the original, probably because it lacked black-fu), he's certainly shown he's at least a shade better than most Hollywood hacks (even if his tagging as "visionary" on the Watchmen poster made me laugh) and I think he should be given an opportunity to do something of his own vision.