who watches the watchmen? - review

okay, i've seen it. but for the first time of my life, i left the theatre without knowing whether i liked watchmen or not. will explain below, but be forewarned: there will be spoilers.

watchmen: the good

the soundtrack.  christ, the soundtrack is one of the best i've ever seen  (heard) in a movie. the first scene,  when the comedian is murdered,  gets even more intense when its ruthlessness and violence contrast with the melancholic song that can be heard. just as the funeral, with simon and garfunkel's sound of silence playing. and so many others. 

the acting. globally speaking, all of them are very good - the cast had actors, not pop stars, and that worked out pretty well. have to say this though: among all the actors, the oscars would go to jeffrey dean morgan as comedian and jackie earle haley as rorschach.

the visual effects. obviously.

the little details. those that are there,  just as they are in the comic. like laurie's snowball over the telly, when she remembers her childhood. or hollis' repair shop poster. 

the adaptation itself, the way how the movie shown the main scenes of the graphic novel and stepped away from the unnecessary parts - like the tales of the black freighter, as i suspected, or  the shrink's family drama. 

rorschach's analysis. i feared that rorschach's interrogation after he was arrested would be removed, when it's one of the story's best moments. but it wasn't; snyder understood its importance, and filmed. again, he was pretty clever: if i remember correctly, in the book rorschach kills the little girl's murderer by shackling him to a pipe. then he hands the guy a saw, smears gasoline all over the place and tells him, before setting the place on fire, that the saw won't cut through the metal pipe. to film it like this - it's the way it is in the book - would be odd, because as far as i know one of the "saw" movies has a scene just like this one (guess where the director got the idea...). watchmen's audience might have not read the graphic novel; as such, people could think that snyder was copying the other movie. good option. 

the changed climax. well, it is different from the book, even though in the end it has the same practical results. good choice: following the graphic novel would make the movie longer, and as it is... it is already long enough. besides, blaming dr. manhattan does not has no significant consequence on the plot, and shows the unmatched intelligence of adrian veidt. 

the beginning's credits. works as an excellent introduction to the story. 

watchmen: the bad

the plot's rhythm is not billiant, especially in the movie's first half. some scenes do not fit together as they should. all those flashbacks are necessary, of course, but somehow they shatter the movie's sequence. 

rorschach's analysis. it is there, but should have been better developed. namely, the origin of his mask should have been mentioned, the kitty genovese affair and how it affected him. and, of course, the irony of rorschach being analysed with... a rorschach inkblot test. 

the big hole in the plot: how on earth did the comedian know about veidt's conspiracy? government asked him to investigate? i don't buy that; despite the conflict with the oil lobby, veidt was above any suspicion. 

jon and laurie's return to a devastated new york should have included a little more blood and gore. hell: the movie has blood and broken bodies all over; some more would make little difference.

bubastis appearance in the end. her origin is not explained - she is just there, in the antartica. odd. 

adrian veidt: it would have been important to show more of veidt's past in order to give him more depht. in the end, he is almost a flat character, and that's simply wrong. 

the movie ends exactly as the graphic novel, but... for those who are not familiar with the book, the new frontiersman is just another newspaper. okay: the movie wouldn't have time to include the newspapers' political wars, but without that background, the ending is not as good as it should be. 

watchmen: not the ugly, but a little summary. 

the movie was not made for fanboys only. it follows the original plot, but something is amiss. okay, considering how dense and complex is the plot, i do believe this was the best adaptation possible. zack snyder deserves all the credit. however... quoting the movie critic jorge mourinha, "we are left half-way between amazement for his ability to film a masterpiece novel and frustration because the film is nothing more than that. all right, that's already a lot. but considering what watchmen is on the paper, it might not be enough." what is missing is the director's personal mark printed on the movie. in the end, that was one of the things that made peter jackson's the lord of the rings a great, great movie.