Watch Out for the Watchmen

This is a great little video from one many imaginative contributors to Newgrounds. If only Watchmen had been made into a Saturday morning cartoon... Thanks to Kent for the heads up on this.

As for the film (which opened today), go see it. All two hours and forty five minutes of it. I liked it. It does justice to the book, an already mammoth undertaking, keeping most everything intact. Only a few side plots are axed or shortened and the ending is altered a little. I actually think the film's ending is better than the graphic novel's. It at least makes the book more accessible to people who haven't read it. The film is paced very well and rarely drags. That being said, it definitely feels like two hours and forty five minutes. The action sequences are truly exhilerating and the CGI and special effects are all well done. The film does a good job in developing the characters in the same way that the book does. More so, much of the dialogue from the book is used word for word in the film. Good for the writers. No reason to change Alan Moore's already excellent characters and story.

It is well acted for the most part, standouts being Patrick Wilson as Dan Dreiberg/Nite Owl and Jackie Earle Haley as Rorschach (There is no Walter Kovacs). Malin Ackerman as Sally Jupiter/Silk Spectre began to grate on me after awhile. Matthew Goode gives a nice, effective performance as Adrian Veidt/Ozymandias but is a little too much of a pussy for me. Not that I would've done a better job. I would've come off as a pussy, too. Yay, me. Billy Crudup is appropriately detached as Dr. Manhattan, however, I always thought Manhattan would have a much deeper voice. Jeffrey Dean Morgan looks and acts every bit the part of Edward Blake/The Comedian. That's just good casting (not to take away from Morgan's work).

In the end, the film of Watchmen, one of Time Magazine's 100 Greatest Novels of All Time, is as good as it can possibly be. Those who are disappointed by it are expecting too much. The film may not get Alan Moore's stamp of approval, but it certainly gets mine.