Zack Snyder set out to film the unfilmable graphic novel. As far as I am concerned: mission accomplished. Snyder from the very beginning understood the thematic weight of the story, the iconicism of the characters, and the importance of change in jumping mediums. The box office numbers did not make sense though.
Do not get me wrong. The movie is full of faults, but what movie isn't. The acting was a little too melodramatic. Granted Watchmen is a melodrama, but the acting could have sold a little better. Instead it felt a little better than a soap opera. When Morgan's Comedian feels the most natural than there is a problem. Aesthetically, I thought they got the SPIRIT of the book dead to rights, but like EVERY adaptation before it certain things needed to be changed. The action was semi-atrocious. Entertaining, but in context, was ridiculous. The movie was marketed as a movie about superheroes only one of which actually has superpowers yet their was a Matrix-esque alley fight and Ozymandias' Daredevil (the movie version)-esque fight choreography just didn't fit.
A local radio DJ made a good point. The difference between The Dark Knight and Watchmen was that Nolan crafted a film where he asked "Now at any part am I losing the audience" while Snyder pandered to fanboys. Now, I have agree. Snyder infamously plays towards the fanboy crowd. He gives little online treats all the time and seems to really care about what the fanboys have to say. But I do not believe he thought he was losing the audience. I think he put a lot of faith in the story to capture the audience members who never gave it a fair chance since it is a comic book. Obviously, the story isn't for everyone. That, or it really is unfilmable and just doesn't translate as well.
Frankly, it was marketed as any other superhero movie. But it was tremondously different in terms of pacing, dialog, and thematic heaviness than most other comic movies. Plus no one is ever really prepared to spend 3 hours in a movie theater.
Watchmen is an unfortunate mess. It doesn't deserve the contempt it got or the poor box office performance. It wasn't bad, I really enjoyed it, but I couldn't help but think it could have been better. I look forward to the director's cut, but I think this will also be remembered as a "What if.....?" moment in cinematic history.
Best Part: The amazing credit sequence introducing the audience to this new world featuring masked heroes played against Bob Dylan's "Times Are A-Changing." Believe the hype, it's quite a nice opening.
7/10.
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