Vanessa and I took in Watchmen today, a film I’d been anxious to see as the reviews looked good and I’ve been wanting to see if someone could finally make a film that would make curmudgeonly Alan Moore happy with an adaptation of his work. I was also anxious to see how Vanessa liked the film, being as she is not a comic book geek, whereas I have read the graphic novel many, many times over.
I won’t recap the film excessively, but both Vanessa and I were in the liked-it-but-didn’t-love-it camp. Vanessa thought the plot was a little too convoluted, whereas I thought it might be a little too faithful with the original material and could have taken a little more creative license with the material without detracting from the story. Aside from a slight deviation in the ending and a few extraneous scenes (I don’t recall there needing to be a long sex scene with Malin Ackerman, but I’m not complaining), the movie is pretty much shot-for-shot from the graphic novel. Now, considering how great the graphic novel was, maybe that’s not a bad thing, but it’s just my opinion. Perhaps another viewing is called for.
All in all, I’d give the film an Ebertian mild-thumbs-up, and from what I hear of possible extras, I have no doubt that this is going to be going to be one kick-ass DVD that will definitely be added to my collection come Christmas Time.
