watchmen

So everybody I've talked to seems to have hated this movie.  Which almost makes me want to defend it.  Which I don't really want to do.  I just don't think it was that bad.  But it was fundamentally flawed.  It was trying too hard to appease the graphic novel's fan base.  The filmmaking itself didn't seem original at all.  It seemed like a film made in 2008 using all of 2008's language (I'm talking about filmmaking language).  Including elements that made such failures as Southland Tales and The Fountain.  Learn from those mistakes, man!

The graphic novel, on the other hand was ahead of its time for 1985 and even though I just read it this month I found it very original.  Turning the whole idea of super heroes on its head.  Taking a common concept and looking at it from a different angle.  The movie took it head on.  Incredibly faithful adaptations that were almost too faithful.

However, the casting was brilliant and most of the actors were perfect.  Kudos to all of them.

But when a philosophical monolog/journal entry is good and captivating when you're READING it, it gets tedious and boring when you're listening to someone recite it, word for word.  Especially in an annoying voice.  No offense, Rorschach, but you sounded a lot better being read than being heard.

Listen, being a film fan first above other media of storytelling, it is my first instinct to defend film adaptations of stories.  Because much of the time, people's complaints are about how something wasn't faithful enough, how they changed this plot point, how they didn't include this scene, whatever.  Most of the time, I have to explain that film is a different medium, that when  a change is made to the story, it generally has a very good reason.  But in the case of Watchmen, I can't defend it using that line of thinking.  I think, for me, the perfect film adaptation of the story would piss off all the fans of the graphic novel.

So I guess that's it.  I have no need to see the movie again but I don't feel I wasted an evening or money.  It was fun enough to see the story played out, and I liked the acting.  Oh, but I hated the makeup work.  What the hell was that?  All the people made up to look old just looked...like they were made up to look old.  Anyway, I also liked the small but significant change that was made with the ending.  I just wish they had taken more liberties than that.