Only by the power of an overrated, hack commercial director could this fail to satisfy as either fan service or as a flick, but by god Zach Snyder succeeds!
Just got back a bit ago from the noon showing. Where to begin... you know, I think the saddest part out of all of this is that going in, I was convinced that there was no way Watchmen could ever work as a movie, three hours or otherwise. I have to say, for all of the massive fail in the movie (and there's a lot, and I'll get to it all in a minute) that I am now convinced someone with some semblance of skill behind the camera could have crafted a good to great film adaptation. That person is not, sadly, Zach Snyder.
You can see the mark of a talented director in the performance of a cast- mediocre actors will turn in good performances under a good director, and bad actors will up their game to at least mediocre. Good actors will turn in good performances under pretty much any circumstances- think Ewan McGregor in the craptastic SW prequels. At least he was watchable. Well, Watchmen suffers from much the same poor decision making and execution.
Let's give some props where they're due- Billy Crudup and Jackie Earle Haley both are very good as Dr. Manhattan and Rorschach. Some of the sequences were really good, like the opening credits and the Rorschach prison flashback. Knowing how Snyder is a hyperactive distinguished mentally-challenged fellow, he showed admirable restraint (for him, anyway) in abusing the "omg cool slow down cam" trick.
That's about where the good stuff ends, unfortunately. The rest of the cast sucks, other than the Comedian who isn't in the film enough to help out, really. Especially bad is the doofus cast to play Niteowl II- I actively cringed every time I saw him on screen. Malin Akerman is bad as Silk Spectre II, but she's the type of actress imo that probably could have turned in a better performance with better direction, and at least she got nekkid so she gets a thumbs in the middle I guess. Ozy is... I can't decide if I'm indifferent towards the actor's performance or if I actively disliked it. That's probably not what they were going for.
The pacing was bad. The choices for the soundtrack were laughably bad (the sex scene on Archie has already been discussed to death, but yes, it's THAT BAD) for the most part- I kind of liked the "Times They Are a Changin'" opening sequence, but other than that just plain ugh. Sure it was cool seeing shots and going "oh shit I remember that from the comic" but that doesn't make this a good movie, or even good fan service. Just a mess all around, really. The first, abortive attempt at fuckin' between Dan and Laurie really kind of captures the whole essence of the movie- not satisfying for anyone who's being honest with themselves, really.
If I was giving this a star rating, I'd give it 1 and 1/2 stars out of 4. The extra half is for Crudup and Haley's performances and the fan service, and I guess for Akerman gettin' nekkid so much. Not a good movie, and Zach Snyder is now 0 for 3- don't listen to dolts like Federwang who just WANT to like shit without thinking about it critically- this movie and Snyder are both failures.
Like I said at the beginning of this rant, though, there was POTENTIAL in there. I could see how a 3 1/2 hour screen version of this could work, so bully for Snyder for getting that much right I guess. Perhaps the Director's Cut might fix a few things, but there's no fixing bad directing and acting, so I'm kind of at a loss to see how more fan service is gonna improve this overall. A Kingdom of Heaven scenario this will not be, I'm afraid.
So yeah, BAD MOVIE, BAD FAN SERVICE.
Edit-
spoiler (click to show/hide)
Forgot- the end change IS an improvement over the end of the comic. Suck it, nerdlingers.
