Watchmen
Watchmen was the first graphic novel I'd ever read. I read it just a few weeks before the movie came out amongst the craze and stacks of the novel in plain view at every book store you would enter.
I actually found the novel to be quite exciting at first. Although it became quite convoluted at times, I was hoping it would wrap up nicely. Unfortunately I found many aspects of the climax to be a but absurd and unexpected in a way out of congruity with the rest of the book. I actually somewhat preferred some of the changes made in the climax of the film.
Anyways, the film was about what I expected. My favorite part of the book was Rorschach and he was also probably my favorite part of the film.
I can't say the acting was great, but it's usually rare when it is in these big comic book movies. It did keep me engaged through the long running time though. I'm not sure if that was because I had already read it and was curious about how it would play out in the film.
I was shocked not by the fact that the violence and sexual imagery was boosted up even beyond what was shown in the book, but by the fact that despite this they decided to remove all instances of smoking. The book shows this strange alternate reality where people are smoking these odd kind of pipes with a spherical end. It's kind of strange to me that someone clearly made a decision to censor the original content in a way that the smoking would be removed but decided alternately to beef up the violence and sex. I can understand being concerned about making smoking look appealing to children, but the very fact that these other elements were present gave it an R rating which clearly meant the film was not intended for children. I'm so confused.
Rating: 7/10