I've been looking forward to it since about 1987
Saw the movie yesterday (friday 6th) took the day off work to catch the first showing, watched it in IMAX which is awesome.
It is a very dense movie, some significant changes from the book, but the heart of the story is all there. It is a little gory definitely not a kids movie, it's rated 18 here in the UK and for once I believe that is a fair rating.
The opening 20 minutes is a geek fest for all those fans of the graphic novel. The actor who plays Rorshach owns the role completely. I will be going to see it again because like the book I'm sure new things will reveal themselves on each viewing.
Despite some flaws I personally loved the movie.
pernik beat me to my own review. This is nearly word for word what I was going to say. Having visited this site regularly for a few years now, I can say with confidence that some of you will absolutely love it, while others would consider it indicative of Everything That Is Wrong With Hollywood. If you like your heroes morally correct in every instance, you will not like this movie. That was my feeling before I even saw it and it was even more my feeling afterwards. I personally thought that the first 20 minutes were stunning, but the alternate history it presents may be offensive to some SOH members, judging by grievances in their past postings. I'd like to point out however, that Zack Synder's last blockbuster,
300, was IMHO even
more ahistorical than this setting, and I can run that down point by point if I have to. (I got the 2 disc version of
300 for my birthday one year.)
I strongly disagree that this is the "quintessential guy movie"; it requires too much concentration. There is
not an action scene every five minutes, and it takes its sweet old time getting to the point. I think it runs at 2 hours 41 minutes. Too long? I can't say. IMHO nowhere near as geeky as
Iron Man, which really enjoyed, but then I'm a deep nerd. (Certain members of my family deny that I am true nerd, and am just running a scam, but I assure you this is not true.) What I did like very much about the film is that there is no such thing as consequence free violence. The last 20 minutes of the film made changes to the comic that I thought were uneccessary, but that is the way of
auteur directors. Besides, in my experience, fanboys aren't really happy unless they have something to b*tch about. I know for me, picking nits is part of my enjoyment; part of the fun.
NOTE: It cost 7.50 USD per ticket to see this film, and those were
matinee prices. This is why I only attend a few first run movies a year. I remember riding my 10-speed to see the matinee of
The Empire Strikes Back and it costing me a whopping 1.50.
ALSO NOTE: There were new trailers for
Star Trek, Terminator, and
Wolverine before the show. Both movies open in May. The way that
The Watchmen concluded, I do not expect there to be a sequel.
Roger Ebert gave
The Watchmen four stars, and wrote that he planned to see it again in IMAX. Jeff Simon, the movie critic from one of my local papers, gave it two and one half stars. He seemed to think the film needed at least one prestige actor, like Jack Nicholson in the 1989
Batman. That to me has always seemed odd; the movie critics' propensity to blame one film for not being another film. My opinion: It's for who it's for. The target audience knows who it is. You know who you are. Some people are opposed as a matter of principle to a comic taking itself seriously; these should save their money for something they'd really enjoy.
JAMES
