Saw Watchmen earlier. Visually, it was great; Dave Gibbons' artwork brought to cinematic life. And while it tried to stay true (maybe even inanely true) to the graphic novel, as with all film adaptations of Alan Moore comics, it pales in comparison to the source material. The best part of the film was the opening credits montage where director Zack Snyder shows the world's background and origins to the tune of Bob Dylan's The Times They Are A-Changin'. (Maybe Snyder should stick to making short films in the style of opening credits montage. Prior to this, I thought that his best work was the opening credits to the Dawn of the Dead remake.) What follows is a very uneven film that tries to get the feel and the mood of the world that Moore and Gibbons created but stumbles more often than not.
Another gripe I have with the film has something to do with Snyder's fight scenes which I think were bloodier and more gruesome than the ones in the comics. Plus, they were shot in Snyder's signature fast forward slow motion (fastfoslowmo?) style which annoyed the hell out of me when I first saw it in his300 (not that that's the only annoying thing in that movie. That whole movie was an annoyance in itself) which made the film feel all the more dragging.
I admit that it took a couple of readings before I truly appreciated Watchmen. The first time I read it, it was okay. It did not wow me or anything, I just thought that it was different than any of the comics I've read before. It was darker, more violent, the heroes were not really heroes (some of them, at least) and what the fuck was that pirate story all about? I only "got" it after the second time around and I appreciated it even more after subsequent readings. If my appreciation for the movie adaptation will increase through subsequent viewings, that remains to be seen.
