The music selections were what I liked the least about the film, or second-to-least besting the very unsexy sex scene.

I would not go as far as Tom to say it was one of the worst films in years. But I don't think it's made for people who haven't read the book. All it really did for me was make me want to read the book.

I really did enjoy the performances by Jackie Earle Haley and Patrick Wilson.

I'm mostly with Alex and LSPE on this one.

While it was mostly faithful to the comic, it didn't capture the feeling that I got from the original work. It was just a series of scenes "come to life". I didn't find the acting offensive - the casting was particularly good - and the pacing was enough to keep me from drifting or getting bored.

Last week, I read a review that called the music supervision "lazy". That struck me, because I can't ever recall a review for any movie that singled out the music supervision at all. Then, A.O. Scott from the NY Times commented out in his review on the use of Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah" : "...can we please have a moratorium on the use of this song in movies? Yes, I too have heard there was a secret chord that David played, and blah blah blah, but I don’t want to hear it again. Do you?"

I'm with them. Most if not all of the songs in the movie came directly from other movies' soundtracks. "The Times They Are A'Changin"? "The Sound of Silence"? "Koyaanisqatsi"?!? Come on. I can imagine the conversation at the studio: "We need something that evokes the feeling that that Leonard Cohen song from Shrek does." "We have the budget. Let's just get that song." Bad music choices pulled me out of a movie that I was only tenuously connected to in the first place - over and over again.

For the most part music in movies rolls by me unnoticed so the fact that I noticed it frequently here was noteworthy (not necessarily bad but not noteworthy). That said, I rolled my eyes hard at Ride of the Valkyries during the Vietnam scene complete with incoming helicopters.

I'm sure it was meant as homage but it was just so obvious.

I thought the movie was a mess. The opening credits were interminable and agonizingly trite. The music cliche. The characters dull. My God, the whole movie was a bore.

Except ...

Jackie Earle Haley as Rorschach -- he was brilliant. JEH carried the movie on his shoulders with a performance of a lifetime. Like Mickey Rourke's Marv in Sin City, you hoped every scene would just be about him. Alas, it was not -- and it was painful. Very, very painful.

He also had the movies best line:

Are Bill & I the only ones who loved the movie?

I'm thinking that I should read the GN if I'm interested.

No, I rather enjoyed it.

I have never read the GN, so I liked it just as a movie. Even though all the daming critiques noted above are spot on.


But I'm a sucker for washed up Superheroes stories.

Even though I kinda liked it, I could tell it lost something in spiritual if not literal translation from the graphic novel. Because certainly there couldn't be such fanboy mania over this material if the GN weren't way, way better.

It is.

I thought it was a fantastic film. Faithful, well cast, well adapted from the source material. I think the music, though odd, was there to establish the nostalgia of it, since it's a period film. I "think" that was the choice they made to establish that, which I don't think was the best choice. I think the director missed some opportunities to set up the film properly, so many who didn't read the GN had little set up of what they were getting into. My sence from reviews on the WWW were that most were sizing it up to Dark Knight et al. and not as a film on its own. That is, although it's super-heroes, the story goes deeper into the social commentary and the grey line between good and bad and the human side of the Super-Hero existance. I think the tone of the film lost a bit of that and I think that hurts the experiance for those who've not read the GN. I guess I can only liken it too if "Rosebud" was left out of Citizen Kane.

It's flawed but well worth experiancing and based on the above, I think the GN should be read beforehand.

I'll join my voice to the minority here who loved it. And I haven't read the novel...yet. I've been wanting to, but just haven't. I'm definitely picking it up right away.

As much as I like the "Boy Scout" superheroes like Superman, I also love a flawed hero. So I think it was the characters in Watchmen that made for a more enjoyable movie experience. Especially Rorschach. What an awesomely psychotic anti-hero that you just have to love.