Watching the Watchmen

Watchmen is the Bible of comic books. Every true comic book nerd keeps a copy by their bedside and every night they worship the author/God, Alan Moore (Who incidentally looks exactly like one would picture a comic book God to look like.). The book itself is original, deep, smart, provocative, action-packed and in short amazing. That being said, how does the movie compare? To keep the religious analogy going it’s not the Holy Grail of comic book movies, that title still lies with the Dark Knight. Watchmen however is a strong second (Consider it a really-really-nice grail even if it’s not holy.).

Why the movie is so good probably has a lot to do with the fact that very little is changed from the actual comic book. Almost all of the dialogue is identical, and most of the scenes are extremely faithful to the comic. A major thing that was altered was the ending even though only minimally and in my opinion for the better. Also one of the best lines in the book, “Nothing ever ends,” is said as an afterthought in the movie and not by the intimidating blue dude like in the book, but that’s nit-picking.

Where the movie doesn’t work is the acting, which varies from amazing to painful. Rorschach, the Comedian and Sally Jupiter fall into the amazing category; Laurie Jupiter and Ozymandias sadly do not. Laurie Jupiter looks good in her part but the acting seems forced and her lines cheesy. Ozymandias could not seem like a more stereotypical cold and heartless villain right from the beginning which is not good because it’s supposed to be a surprise that he is the stereotypical cold and heartless villain.

Back to the plus side, Zach Snyder the director does an awesome job. The montage to “The Times they are a Changing” is one of the best parts of the movie and just overall his style works with the film. Like all really good directors however he doesn’t know how to keep a movie short (Peter Jackson anyone?) and Watchmen is over two and a half hours.

That pretty much sums it up. If you have ever read a comic book you have probably already seen the movie … multiple times. If you somehow fall into the above category but have not seen it, I would make it a top priority. As for you others out there who have never read a comic and haven’t seen the movie, I would go see it and consider it kind of like watching one of those foreign films with subtitles. You won’t really understand anything that happens but you’ll appreciate your glimpse into a different and alien culture.

The Question should not be " Who watches the watchmen" but " Who doesn't watch the watchmen"