I can’t call myself a long time fan of the watchmen, I got the graphic novel just after last Christmas and read it over a month. I did buy it knowing the movie was coming out soon and to see what all the fuss was about. The graphic novel had been listed in time magazines top 100 novels since 1923 and is held in high esteem among graphic novel fans.
The watchmen was really the best graphic novel/comic I’ve ever read. It had so many layers of story woven into a great read. I really got into all the characters not just one or two, I liked all of them as they had very interesting back stories.
Moving onto the movie now. I saw the movie adaption last Friday night, I went with a friend who had also just recently read the graphic novel and we were quiet excited about the movie, as we heard it was the best adaption you could of made out of such complex of source material. The intro was really well done, showing the start of costumed heros around the 40′s and moving to 1985 while showing big events with the heroes mixed in. Such as the moon landing with the astronauts finding Dr Manhattan on the moon waiting for them with a movie camera.
The rest of the movie was pretty spot on to the graphic novel while obviously leaving some things out, otherwise the movie would of been 5 hours not 2hrs and 40mins. The Director Zack Snyder used the graphic novel itself as a storyboard and wanted to keep to that as much as possible. Which worked out really well until he started adding stuff into the movie that wasn’t in the graphic novel, like the ultra violence and sex. The graphic novel was about as violent as a Bond movie, but somehow Mr Snyder thought it would be great to ramp the violence up to levels where even I had to look away. The movies love scene if you can call it that, was more like a porno.
Maybe if they bring out a M or PG version of the watchmen movie with the graphic violence and porno like sex scene cut out or down, I’d buy it on DVD.
I’m giving The Watchmen 6.5 8 out of 10. A great re-creation of the comic, but wtf was with all the ultra violence and sex?
Edit: Upon Reflection I’m changing the score to 8 out of 10. If I hadn’t gone with my gf I wouldn’t of minded the violence so much.
sylv3rblade
says:
Hey nice review. I’ve just watched the movie and I give it a 7. It’s great but it’s not perfect. Take how Silk Specter II was portrayed. >_> It’s not as well polished as The Dark Knight but it’s got some really interesting screen play.
The downside for me is that a few times in the movie, I felt really, really bored.
The narrative is a good means of telling the story but personally I’d appreciate it if it was kept to bare minimum.
March 16th, 2009 at 1:06 pmTRIPtych
says:
Thanks.
The story does drag a bit in the movie, but overall its very close to the graphic novel.
March 16th, 2009 at 1:58 pmRead the graphic novel and you will see the story works best in a comic format.