Sweet. 
How could something so wrong be so hilarious?
No offense, LawMonkey, but that’s not much help. I want specifics, if someone wouldn’t mind. Are we talking graphic punching with blood? Eviscerations? Disembowelments? The ripping off of limbs?
I know the story, so I’m ready for things like the dogs chewing on the little girl’s bones, and Jon Osterman blowing to pieces inside the chamber. But if there are things like people getting their limbs ripped off or their guts spilled in full technicolor glory, I want to be ready for it so I can look away for a sec.
It is actually nicely covered by ‘extremely’ graphic. IMO it is probaby the most ‘on-screen’ graphically violent movie I have seen, and certainly the worst I can recall off the top of my head. If you want specifics I’ve spoilered some below.
The aforementioned girls bones being squabbled over by two dogs.
The result of that you see a meat cleaver repeatedly buried in someones skull.
John causes people to explode in full technicolour glory, and in a few instances of that the camera focuses adoringly on the blood and gore left splattered and dripping from places.
In the prison, a prisoner trying to get at Rorshrach (sp) gets his arms angle-grinded off full on screen.
In fight scene’s in an alley against hoods, and in the prison, where Night Owl and Silk Spectre II are involved some of the injuries get pretty graphic with compound fractures, etc
While a little bit violent, the attempted rape scene was pretty graphic and bothered my wife a little
They are the ‘high-points’ I can remember off hand, of particularly gruesome scenes. But the whole movie has a pretty high graphic level throughout.
Not that that bothers me, I’m pretty tolerant of graphic violence.
Thanks. Yeah, that was more what I was looking for.
I’m actually a bit surprised with all that violence, plus one scene of Silk Spectre’s breasts and constant scenes of Dr. Manhattan’s dong, that this movie still managed only an R rating. Maybe it’s because the swearing is limited (only one or two of the major words I can remember)?
Also, the more I think about it, there’s one more thing that bugs me about the changed ending:
It’s harder to buy that the Comedian would discover the plot and have a mental breakdown because of it. Discovering that someone is going to make a bunch of energy bombs and blow up some cities? That’s pretty standard fare. Discovering some giant horrific psuedo-alien monster squid (that may or may not have some sort of negative psychic abilities)? That’s the stuff that might make grown men cry at night.
Is it a giant space cloud that kinda looks like Galactus instead? 
Not a review, but have you all seen the PvP parody of Watchmen running this week?
http://asylums.insanejournal.com/scans_daily/42433.html
It’s brilliant. I never read PvP, but it looks like I should start.
I just got back from the movie. I thought it was pretty good. As mentioned above they changed the ending in the details (though the system was called S.Q.U.I.D.) but it still worked if not as well as the books.
I also don’t think the full frontal nudity of Manhattan was that noticeable. I think I’d have looked right over it if I hadn’t seen it mentioned here. Also I don’t remember them actuality showing the Specters breasts like I saw mentioned above. Which seen was that in. Perhaps I saw some strange edited version. Or my mind could have wandered. That does happen a lot.
I guess that doesn’t say much about the sex scene between Silk Spectre and Nite Owl, since that’s where it occurs.
I’m in for saying I thought the sex scene was incredibly hot. I thought it was incredible! The music was a bit jarring at first (a criticism that is actually recurring through out the film…) but caught up with the scene a little bit into it.
Overall though, this is a tough one to review. I thought the first half of the film was choppy at best. The second half of it was phenomenal. One trouble as a guy who has read the GN dozens of times, I had a problem with some of the dialogue.
You know how it can be jarring, when watching a historical novel, to have the actor deliver a much quoted line? It takes you out of the moment, because the line is TOO famous to be dialogue. For instance, in the HBO movie Truman, Gary Sinise makes the wise guy crack “If you want a friend in Washington, get a dog.” Instead of buying it, I am thinking of the way Truman probably said it. The curtain comes down a bit.
Watchmen was the same way. Not only did I KNOW when the lines were coming, I compared them to the multiple “showings” that had occurred in my head since the early 90s when I first read it. Tough to compare. That is why the longer the book took to produce into a film, the harder the task.
I think this will be a tough film for all viewers. The harcore fan will be constantly comparing it to the Citizen Kane of graphic novels, and the casual viewers are going to wonder what the hell the alien looking dog is in the final scenes(no set up for Bubastis, or did I miss it?)
There were some huge flaws in the film, but on the whole they are balanced by some exceptional moments. In fact, Snyder even solves the few flaws that the original graphic novel contained (Squid, the bar cutting scene, and the kiddie rapist).
Unfortunately, Snyder is at his best when there is action or FX onscreen. When the script requires human complexity, he demonstrates his own flaws. He was described as a visionary director of 300. I think he is more visionary than director (plus, the FX of the Antarctica fortress was cheesy.)
On the acting side, I loved Jackie Earle Haley, liked the guy playing Ozymandias (I don’t get the criticism. Sure he looked scrawny, but he had Ozy down cold in mannerism and acting!), and Billy Crudup’s Dr. Manhattan.
I did not like Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Matt Frewer as Molloch or ANYONE who had only one line or two (this was the worst “extra” acting I have ever seen. It is like they spent no time on getting a good take on things like the Vietnamese pregnant girl) I’m still undecided on the guy who played Nite Owl and Malin Ackerman. Both were annoying, but that is kind of how they were in the novel. Ackerman is clearly not a good actress, but she is essentially playing an idiot anyway. She’s a girl who studied Judo instead of history. Why would she be deep? I didn’t think she was Katie Holmes in Batman Begins awful. And boy was she hot in the spandex uniform!
I think upon a second viewing I will like this film even more, or I could think it is unwatchable I need to see it again.
I initially gave it a 4 out of 5 stars. My final rating could range from 2.5 to 4.5.
I am curious. How are those flaws?
I just got back from seeing it. I had never read the book, but, from reading sites like this, I had an idea of what to expect. I thought it was terrific. The acting didn’t stand out as being particularly bad, although I might notice it more if I watched it again. The sex scene, too, was awesome solely because I love Malin Akerman and have no problem looking at her titties.
Actually … that was one of my few problems with the film. I mean, at the beginning of the movie, they’re playing Bob Dylan, and they’re showing cuts from the 60s (and before, but whatever). I would have liked “All Along the Watchtower” had it not been for the fact that they seemed to have a time-specific theme running throughout the movie. Surely there had to be something from the 80s that would have fit in just as well.
I’m sorry if that invalidates my thoughts I had on the quality of the film.
IIRC, the title of the corresponding chapter in the book was “Two Riders Were Approaching”.
Just got back. There isn’t enough time to reflect as when reading the book. I like the changed ending better than the book. I thought the actor playing Adrian Veidt did a fine job, as did all the actors. Not enough girl nudity for me.
But for the lead actress’s performance, I liked it.
Really?! That’s great, I missed that entirely. Was it printed on a control panel or something? Now I have to see it again.
I will have to think on this for a bit. I appreciate the faithfulness of the adaptation, and that the significant changes mostly seemed for the better. But for all its accomplishments, it felt a bit cold. The movie didn’t make me want to be really invested in Laurie’s true parentage, for example, but maybe that was her shitty acting. I liked Patrick Wilson (Nite Owl) and Rorschach a lot, the Comedian, Jon and mommy Silk Spectre did their parts well. Everyone else just didn’t feel convincing. I was kind of mentally going through the checklist rather than getting drawn in to the movie.
But I don’t know. I really don’t know how it could have been much better. It told the story well, covered MUCH more material than I expected, and I think if nothing else it will encourage more people to read the book, which can only be a good thing.
I felt the exact same way. It was like Watchmen, but without the heart.
You could spend weeks pouring over every panel of the GN picking up things you missed the first time. The movie didn’t seem to have that. The Rorshach reveal seemed particularly clumsy to me. In the GN, it’s really an “Oh shit!” moment, but it felt shoehorned into the movie.
I did, however, enjoy the music. All of it. Soundtrack was the only thing Gibbons and Moore couldn’t do with their book, and I bet they wish they could have.
I thought Jackie Earle Haley rocked as Rorschach – just spot on. I like that they really kept his story so faithful and kept all his good lines.
I liked Matthew Goode’s Ozymandias too. He’s just smug enough without chewing the scenery.
I also thought Manhattan was flawlessly rendered in all his awesomeness, and that Billy Crudup gave him the right air of abstraction.
People have been critic of Malin Ackerman’s acting, but I didn’t think she was all that bad. She’s really just not a very interesting character to begin with. I personally find Ackerman smoking hot, so I don’t mind a little wooden dialogue.
Nite Owl actually had a little more personality in the movie than in the book.
The Comedian, I just thought was ok. I don’t know if it was the actor or the dirction, but he just didn’t seem as large a character to me as he does in the book. In the book, he’s like this oppressive, loathsome, scary presence. In the movie, he’s just a guy in a costume.
I didn’t mind the change in the ending. I thought it served basically the same end as the book. All in all, it was a much better rendering of the book than I would have thought possible, but there’s a slight bit of uncanny valley in how closely it hews to the comic. I think it might actually have a better chance of working if you don’t know the book and aren’t constantly mentally comparing it.
There is a shocking amount of blue schlong. Manhattan is hung like a donkey.