I guess I'm late to the party; you guys seem to be the only ones still discussing this movie, which is a shame, because it's worth talking about. I didn't read the comic Back When, but picked it up because of all the movie hullabaloo; it drove me to see the movie. I'm glad I saw it, and (especially) glad I read it. I think by now I can spoil the crap out of this, so I'm gonna. For the record:
WARNING! HERE THERE BE SPOILERS!
The movie was very true to the core of the book, I felt. Some of the book's depth was necessarily lost, in part due to the changed ending. The whole pirate bit was no longer necessary, for example. That part was frankly tedious in the book but helped the suspension of disbelief by fleshing out part of the story that was "off-camera".
The major actors were terrific. The Comedian evoked real emotions in me. Doc "SuperEmo" Manhattan came across just right. Veigt, I felt, was perhaps a little too airy, but he spoke with conviction at times that really came across and drove his character home. Nite Owl and SS2 were played fantastically, but the characters took some collateral damage in the Hollywoodization. Rorschach, the same - but more so and less so, respective-like.
Nite Owl got my sympathy early on as a somewhat geeky, shy, pretty nice guy, limited somewhat by his insecurity and lack of goals. In the riot flashbacks, he tries, to be the voice of calm but hates confrontation and so addresses the crowds instead of the Comedian. Then, stab Snyder's eyes, he lost a lot of that sympathy. First, he was too violent and too capable in the street fight. Then, to find that Archie was equipped with lots of killin' and no squirt gun or noisemaker... well, it just seems out of character. Not that I insist on those specific tools, but Nite Owl should pack nonlethal force when it's an option.
I don't have the same objection with Specter Junior. You get the feeling, more in the movie than the book, that she's always ready to let out a little frustration the hard way. Her fighting capability meshes okay with her background, if you allow somewhat for Snyder's general excess. She does, however, lose a few points for rushing straight into Dan's arms. The sequence felt a bit forced; the book does it almost as quickly but much more naturally.
Rorschach... was indeed badass. But I felt that the movie softened him a bit (no, really!). They took out the random-bar-patron torture scenes, replacing them with an offhand comment. The child molester made a big deal about confessing, and Rorschach was kind enough to kill him quickly. And he broke down quickly with the shrink. His fighting skills, like everyone's, got cranked through the roof, which detracted only slightly from him. I felt he was much more powerful when depicted as an obsessed, somewhat paranoid, very resourceful man, who relied on fear as much as fighting prowess. His adaptive, improvisational fighting was depicted well, but lost something when he could have chosen just to kick everyone's ass with fists and feets of fury.
Cap'n Metropolis was neat, but I don't miss him much in the movie. The only advantage to having him would be to avoid having the Comedian embarrass Veigt, and that's not critical to the characters or story.
The makeup crew needs to be sent back to work in children's theaters.
The soundtrack was jarring. It was a clear attempt to force emotional resonance with Snyder's vision, and it failed. I found myself not feeling the moment, instead going "what the hell?"
The ending... the ending... I'm'a go out on a limb and say that the movie ending was very, very close to perfect without quite hitting the mark. The book's ending was very, very close to perfect but with a major flaw. Each was good for its medium, but each could have been better.
Snyder's error, I felt, was the same as his other mistakes: he overdid it. He had Veigt attack multiple cities; the disaster lost some impact by being worldwide. Moore had the right instincts to pick a single city and blow it all to hell; it's easier for the audience to feel the impact of the loss.
(The book's mistake was egregious and bothered me immediately; the octopus was partially engineered from the brain of a "psychic sensitive", and was in part a big psychic bomb. But the book never laid any groundwork for psychically sensitive people. Moore just assumed we'd accept that the world would have psychic folks, that they were recognized generally, and that somehow they had no impact on history.)
But only one thing really, really bothered me in the movie. It's a small thing, but it drove me absolutely nuts. It still does, and always will. It takes away so much from the point of the movie that it nearly ruins it:
The Watchmen.
The team, I mean. Naming the second-generation almost-team "the Watchmen" is stupid, and Snyder and the writers are stupid for doing it. It completely changes the meaning of the movie. If the team was called the Watchmen, then the movie is just a chronicle of events. If they aren't, it becomes a discussion on the nature of individuals with power and how they use it. Honestly, that change makes me wonder whether the writers or Snyder understood the book.
I liked the movie, I'm cool with the changes; I think some of it was overeager, but it was good. I'd go eight-out-of-ten if he hadn't renamed the not-a-team, but it loses two points for that. Six.
