Watchmen

I went and saw Watchmen tonight. Good thing I reread the graphic novel several months ago or I fear I might have been lost.

I enjoyed it. It is extremely similar to the graphic novel--almost frame for frame. Honestly, it could have used a little bit of editing to make the story flow better--after all, the original is essentially told in chapters. But it is so true to the novel that this choice is understandable.

Quick geeky, non-spoiler, fanboy thoughts:

-Rorschach is just as awesome in the movie as he is in the book. I'm pretty sure they even added freckles to the actor so that he would look like the novel's depiction.

-Quite a bit more violent than it needed to be, I thought. Makes sense for the Rorschach stuff (since he's a psychopath), but some of the other stuff was a little unnecessary. Having seen director Zach Snyder's other stuff, I think perhaps he can't help himself.

-Speaking of unnecessary, Dr. Manhattan's....um, junk...was distracting to say the least. Maybe the kids these days think it's no big deal and I'm just old-fashioned, but I find it hard to focus on the story whenever there is casual full frontal male nudity involved in a non-sexual situation. I did check the comic on this one, and it is much more, shall we say restrained, in its depiction of...of...oh fine, his PENIS. I think this could have been handled differently (especially since the same scenes in the trailer were edited). Like I said, it wasn't uncomfortable for me as much as it was distracting.

-Not to belabor the point, but given Dr. Manhattan's physique, his character in the movie is clearly a CGI image most of the time. So I wonder if actor Billy Crudup had any "creative input" into how he was drawn down there? I kinda have this image of Crudup's agent and the producers hammering out contract numbers and saying "OK, how about we drop our asking price another $500K, but only if you add another 2 inches?"

-All the impersonators they hired to play the real people, like Henry Kissinger, Pat Buchanon, Lee Iacocca....it kinda made the movie lamer than it had to be. I really think that if they had to make this movie again, they would have cast Frank Langella as Nixon.

-You know, director Zach Snyder is probably going to be called "brilliant" for making this movie, but when you get down to it, this guy did exactly what he did on "300", which is to take the comic book and recreate all the same images on screen. I'm not underestimating how hard it is to make a movie like this, but at the same time, can I ever really take this guy seriously as a creative talent if the best thing he ever does is to take existing comic books and translate the exact images to the big screen?

-Just realized that most of the main characters are different parodies of the Batman archetype--a violent vigilante investigator, a fighter with gadgets, a billionaire with a keen intellect and athleticism.

Pretty good movie, all in all. As long as I'm geeking out here, let me also say that seeing the new Star Trek trailer got me pretty excited as well.