I’ll keep this short since you’re probably sick of reading about this movie by now. My biggest problem was that the film felt too beholden to the book, almost to the point where it seemed to have little life of its own beyond that source material. Yes, the sex and violence is ramped up to ludicrous levels, but I think if I wasn’t intimately familiar with these characters already, I’d find it difficult to care about them. Zack Snyder does not appear to me to be an actor’s director. Compare his approach here to Jon Favreau’s in Iron Man and you’ll see what I mean: there’s a warmth and a life and a vitality to the characters in the latter film that’s missing in Watchmen, and I suspect it’s because Snyder adheres so strongly to the book. Jackie Earle Haley is the perfect Rorschach, but to me the real star of the film is Jeffrey Dean Morgan as the Comedian. Of all the actors, he does the best job of giving his character a 3-dimensionality that isn’t quite there anyplace else.

The overuse of the soundtrack drove me nuts. The trimming for the theatrical cut left some odd loose ends (the appearance of Bubastis, which would make no sense to someone who didn’t read the book; Laurie pulling a gun on Adrian out of nowhere). The fake nose on the actor playing Nixon looked stupid (if Frank Langella didn’t need one, why should this guy?). On the other hand, they got Dr. Manhattan right in terms of characterization if not performance, though, in fairness, I don’t know who could’ve made a role so unusual really work (Billy Crudup did his best, but the scene with Laurie on Mars should’ve been super-charged with emotion and it wasn’t; didn’t help that Malin Akerman sucks). The new ending is not so bad, all things considered.

Overall I found it entertaining but only because I know the book so well. Preserving Alan Moore’s vision is a laudable goal, but in the end, he’s right – this is a story that’s better suited for comics. By bending over backwards to uphold the source material, Snyder tried to have his cake and eat it too, but he ended up doing himself and the book a disservice. Compare this film to the one that I still rank as the best comic book movie of all time – American Splendor – and see how the spirit of Harvey Pekar’s comic blends perfectly with the filmmakers’ interpretation of that comic, and you’ll see exactly what I mean about Watchmen the movie being a slave to its source.