Sluggo's Watchmen Review

Well the most anticipated comic book movie of all time came out this weekend and I decided that I should post my opinion.

I’m really conflicted about it. To start with, it is a very good movie. They are faithful to all of the important aspects of the plot and the imagery is total spot on. From a Sluggo point of view, the fight scenes in this movie are the best comic fights ever filmed. There is nothing about the movie that a casual viewer (one who is predisposed to like comic movies) will find off-putting. The performances of the bulk of the cast were near perfect, especially in the case of Nite Owl and Silk Spectre. Those are two of the more nuanced characterizations in the comic, in my opinion, when compared with more one note characters like Rorschach or Dr. M. Their chemistry is like the comic book story come to life. I especially found Nite Owl's transformation from dud to stud, to be handled believably, and I liked him a lot more than I did when I read the issues originally.

But this is comic books, so there must be some fanboy nitpicking. There is one characterization where the director (or actor, thoughI think it was probably the director) totally missed the mark, so much so as to make it hard to watch the character on the screen at times. This is where I should say something about SPOILERS.


Ozymandias in the comic book is the shining star of the Watchmen world; a GOLDEN mishmash of Batman and Captain America. He is so universally loved that he has his own line of action figures, which the movie makes sure to point out. But in the end, the movie totally fails to make this a believable persona. To begin with the character is lit in shadows in almost every key sequence in the movie; he is dressed not in a golden costume but some kind of washed out tan. Part of his costume was pink in the comic for god's sake.

And I realize that most of the audience knows the outcome, but is that any reason to telegraph his role as the villian, in HIS FIRST APPEARANCE on screen. He is visited by Dan and delivers a despondent discussion of the problems with the world. And the delivery of the actor is borderline comatose. In the final sequence, he does kick some serious ass, but still seems like he is on qualudes as he is doing it. And I personally couldn't wait for his signature line about not being a 1940s supervillan, but when it came he totally whiffed.

Whew, glad I got all of that off my chest.

Doctor Manhattan is a little off as well, in my opinion, by being too human of all things. When I read the book, I always felt he was more remote than is represented here. It worked OK in the movie, just didn't match up to my impression.

It's a lot more gory than it needs to be, but I guess this is the director's hangup (see 300). Still the action is really incredible.

In the end, I came away thinking it was very good, but I can’t help but compare it to the feelings I had walking out of Iron Man. I personally feel that Iron Man is the best comic book movie to date and I remember walking out of the movie knowing that. Of course, the material of Watchmen itself doesn’t lend itself to that kind of jumping up and down cheering; it’s similar to walking out of the Dark Knight. I told a friend after I left DK that it was so much I needed time to think about it. I eventually decided that DK was a great movie, but I personally prefer Iron Man. I think I’ll ultimately come to appreciate Watchmen like DK, but I can’t say that walking out of it, I unequivocally loved it.

Sluggo