Quickie review: Watchmen

I saw it on Sunday night. I'll be honest, I wasn't a fan of director Zack Snyder's previous attempt at making a comic book I greatly admired into a movie, 300. I won't get started on all that movies flaws, just summing them up by saying that things happened that were a) not in the comic and b) really, really stupid to have happen in something that is considered an actual historic event.

Fortunately, Watchmen fares much better. I was happy from the opening montage of alternate history, and practically went into fits over the McLaughlin Group (I probably was the only person who saw this and started squealing "ELANOR CLIFF!!!" ... I was only disappointed that Freddie "the Beadle" Barnes and Jack Germond weren't included. Sorry, I grew up watching that show). The movie follows the comic book to a t, minus some changes necessitated by the cutting down of the story.

So, what I have here is a nearly perfect comic book movie, minus some cruddy acting/directing (Snyder directs actors as well as George Lucas does these days). One big, huge, giant exception is Jackie Earle Haley as Rorschach, who is completely perfect and believable in his role (with a nod to Jeffrey Dean Morgan as the Comedian as well.) Its really nice when you've imagined a scene in your head -- in this case Rorschach's "DO IT!!!" -- a million times, then when its on film it exactly lives up to your expectations. Kinda like the opposite of Galadriel in LOTR (a GREAT film in every other respect, but Galadriel was just no fun!).

Oh yeah, and a quick shout out to both the music choices in the film - amazing, perfect, great! and to the many, many, many homages to other great period films. From Strangelove to Apocalypse Now to Risky Business.. there was a lot of movie love goin on.

All in all, its the best comic book movie so far this year, by a long shot, and I recommend you you see it at least twice.