As someone who has never read the graphic novel, I must say that Watchmen the movie was pretty terrible.
I won’t throw this all in Zach Snyder’s lap, because frankly, I think this thing was doomed long before he was on set directing. The screenplay is a barely coherent, badly paced mess. The characters have barely any depth to them, and I can’t think if a single on of them is likable. By the time we were in Antarctica, I barely could recall what the hell the plot was, and I didn’t care.
Although I said it’s not Snyder’s fault, as he started off with one foot in his grave, he does deserve a share of the blame for this mess. It would be too easy, although still appropriate, to criticize his trademark usage of slow motion here, but I won’t bother, as there are other things to pick on. Now, I’ve heard that a lot of the music choices are from the GN itself, and that’s great, but the way Snyder used some of these was so incredibly cheesey (Sound Of Silence during a sappy pan back from the cemetery – really, Snyder?) or cliché (Ride Of The Valkyries during a Vietnam War scene – really, Snyder?). On top of that, he failed to coax a decent performance out of anyone outside of Jackie Earl Haley, and even he was a little too “Bale Batman voice” at times.
Props for some nice visuals, a good score (the Tyler Bates stuff, not the other stuff), and Malin Akerman’s body though.
