Indulge me for a moment with a quick story –

When I got out of the theater, there was an annoying man in front of me. He was walking just slow enough and was just wide enough to block my path. He was also struggling to call someone on his cell phone. He got hold of them just as he got to the doors going outside. He told his friend on the other end he just saw this movie called Watchmen and proceeded to take the next 10 minutes (since he was loud about it I hung around to hear his conversation) to tell his friend he MUST see this movie.

It turns out the guy really never heard of Watchmen, wasn’t really much of a comic fan, but he loved the movie so much he wanted to get the graphic novel and read it.

That is probably the best complement that can be given to the movie, because the man, through his conversation, was just a movie fan and he didn’t go through the months of hype, the debates or had to deal with all the other things comic book people went through in anticipation about the movie. He is the person this movie should speak to, because they come at the movie with the blank slate and will enjoy the movie.

Now, for people like myself who loved the graphic novel, we have to put aside our idea of the graphic novel. This isn’t Watchmen, the comic book phenomenon that is a canon made into the greatest comic book movie ever. To be fair the movie could never live up to that. Is it the worst movie ever? Of course not.

Watchmen is a movie that is a lot better than it should be. It is a well made film, with lots of details and it does come off as a rich world. The performances, for the most part, bring this to life and that is the strength and detriment to the film.

Alan Moore is great with dialog, when you say that dialog inside your head, in context with the backstory elements that he places in his projects. When you read his words out loud, without understanding the intent, they can sound flat. Two scenes illustrate the good and bad of this. When Rorschach screams “Give me my face” because we have grown to understand him and because the actor understands, when he says it we feel the meaning of it. We understand, like Night Owl, that the mask covers up the impotence he feels without it.

When Silk Specter gets the revelation about her father, it should be a shocking yet knowing moment, but its not. Blame could be placed on the actress (and many reviews have talked about her not being good) but in the comic, her backstory is presented better, so when we get to the point where she finds out, she knows but is revealed to know the truth. The actress plays it like in the comic, with a weary, shocked yet knowing emotion. The set up in the movie didn’t take us there, so when she gets to the scene, she pays it right but we haven’t been set up right to get her emotions. That’s why it seems wrong when she plays it right.

While the film is good, bordering on great, the biggest issue with the film is the director and writers are so faithful to the source material that when they had to divert from it, they didn’t connect the new path properly.

The director made a BIG change in the ending of the movie and there has been so much debate on if it was necessary or not. I understand his point of removing it, because to have it you would need another 30 minutes of movie to explain the plot device. With that said it should have been left in the movie.

The director’s decision to change it actually does work on a very base level. It is a great way around a very tricky issue that didn’t cross my mind until after the movie. In the original form, the attack on New York eerily mirrors the reaction that occurred during 9/11. Not a bad thing but the event in the comic set off a world wide decision to back up and power down, as it were. Since the basic premise from the comic book wasn’t used, the attack just couldn’t be on New York, because of the plot device used for the movie. Furthermore, with the experience of 9/11, a general audience probably would have used that as a basis for thinking it seemed hollow because we have the clarity of hindsight to know how the world really changed (not much) after 9/11. So the director made the threat more global and on that level it makes sense.

The cause of the change and the changes that had to made in the last act to make the new ending work, is what makes the downfall of the movie. The change in the ending meant changes in dialog and who says what and what actions are taken. Despite what he said in interviews, the director’s changes to the ending made the movie end like a Hollywood ending, not like the book. The bad guy, even though he has the right reasons in retrospect, is just a bad guy in the movie. In the comic, we are made to understand, like the heroes, that his decision is so screwed up but was the only way to obtain their goals. The movie ending makes it so he was a bad guy with a good idea and we can’t stop him because he outwitted us. In a nutshell, in the comic the plan that occurred convinced the others there was no other choice and that it worked. In the movie, the heroes hate that it worked but know revealing that will be worse, so they reluctantly agree to be silent.

It’s a subtle but very altering shift in the tone of the story, which really gets to the heart of the ending. In the comic, the heroes start a new life, putting up the masks for good. In the movie, life is as it was and in fact they decide to continue to be heroes.

Like I said, the movie, ultimately, is a good movie but it is short from being great because there is too much story to tell in the amount of time given. The back information that would have made sense to it all isn’t there. It seems as no coincidence that Ozymandias and Silk Specter, in many reviews, are said to be the weakest performances yet they’re the ones whose backstories have been stripped the most from the movie. I found their performances fine, but someone who read the graphic novel would have this information and would probably find the performances fine.