Watchmen

Saw the Watchmen movie on opening day (something i haven't done in time immemorable) with Marina. Being how she'd read it semi-recently (within a year or so, i believe), we spent most of the movie congratulating Zack Snyder on how many details he'd gotten right with quick glances and knowing smiles at each other the entire film.

Yeah, i'd say that i liked the film. I'd say i liked it lots. But i'm biased: i loved the comic book.

I'm almost wondering if Snyder wasn't pandering to the book's hardcore following, myself being one of them. I mean, Watchmen was the comic book...ermm, graphic novel, that made me stop reading comic books. Afterwards, everything else just seemed so...silly. Snyder, in my opinion, translated quite successfully the densely detailed comic book into film. No mean feat: how many times have you heard the old chestnut, "the film wasn't as good as the book"? Hard to say, in this case. Yes, one of the things that the film has going for it, from a fan's point of view, is that it almost uses the book as its storyboard as well as, to a slightly lesser degree, its script. Nevertheless, the chasm between media has been traversed.

Even so, i can't help but wonder if the impact or level of success would be the same for someone who hadn't read the book before going to see the movie. For all i know, as i'd said later that night at dinner with friends, it could just have been close to three hours of self-congratulatory pippa-fest.

My only other lament is that i went into the cinema already knowing the joke and that's sad for me. Most of my favorite movies are those that trick you: Fight Club or Psycho, for example. Watchmen falls into this category but the joke was already ruined for me.

If anything, i can finally say there's a movie based on a work written by the great Alan Moore that...well, doesn't suck!