I did. Last night as a matter of fact. And I loved it. Watchmen was long said to be un-filmable; and no doubt, back in the eighties when the story debuted, that was probably true. Today, though, with the help of computer animation, a talented director and no fear of a two hour plus run time, the un-filmable has been filmed.

I was genuinely surprised at how true the movie was to it's source material. Doing a straight adaptation of Watchmen was gutsy. It's a challenging story. It's dark. It's a bit morally ambiguous in places (the book's real moral is played out by minor characters who are mostly left out of the movie). I assumed the movie would be Watchmen pushed through the filter of a Hollywood tent-pole action film - and yeah there was a little bit of that, but mostly it managed to stay pretty true to the heart of the book.

Apparently there's a lot of internet nerd-rage over the changes to the ending. I wish director Zack Snyder and company had stuck with Alan Moore's ending, but thought they managed to make their changes work.

Ultimately, as good as the movie is, the comic is better. Rorschach's origin, Ozymandias' speech at the end, the tour of Mars - all have a power on the page that just doesn't quite survive the translation to celluloid.

One place where the film departed from the comic to it's advantage was the opening credits. The filmmakers created original scenes that set-up the history of super heroes in the world of the Watchmen, set to Bob Dylan's "The Times They Are A-Changing." While all the scenes grew out of references in the actual story, none of them actually appeared anywhere in the book.

All said and done, Watchmen set it's sights pretty high and, for the most part, hit it's mark.  I'm historically unimpressed with a lot of comic book movies - and if there was ever an adaptation with the potential to disapoint, it's one as ambitious as Watchmen. It's nice to be pleasantly surprised every once in a while.

Labels: nerd

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