Watchmen

Watchmen is perhaps the most highly recognized graphic novel of the century and has struggled to make it onto the big screen.  But in March 2009 it finally arrived.

Whenever a movie adaptation of a popular book is filmed, there is a lot of comparisons to the original source material. The movie was pretty close to the original book, though it doesn’t quite achieve the scope that the novel does (nor did I ever expect it to).   And even though the ending was changed the meaning of the ending was kept intact, so I was perfectly okay with it.There were some great performances in here as well, especially Haley as Rorschach, who was every bit as cool on screen as he was on page. Patrick Wilson was also excellent as Night Owl. I have heard conflicting reports on his performance, but after seeing it I fall into the group which really liked him in the role. I also heard that Ackerman was pretty bad, but I honestly never noticed. Carla Gugino as her mother, however, was awful. Luckily she only had a couple of scenes.  Crudup and Morgan were also great.

This movie had just the right tone and atmosphere that Watchmen should have. The movie did feel like it might have been a tad too long and I wouldn’t’ have minded it to be trimmed down just a touch. But the movie was very involving, very authentic, and I believe it was a great effort by Snyder and his cast and crew.
9/10

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