Watching Watchmen

I finally watched the movie The Watchmen. I know I'm very behind the curve on this, especially being a die hard comic book fan, but life just happened. The movie came out during a very busy time for me, not to mention I hadn't read the graphic novel yet and I wanted to have that under my belt before I saw this movie. For a wedding gift I received the graphic novel and I spent portions of my honeymoon reading it. The bus ride into New York I finished the first half, the days my new bride spent at the spa I plowed through the middle, and the ride home I polished it off. I could see Madison Square Garden from my patio at the New Yorker Hotel and when I got to the giant squid section it was a little surreal. Anyway, life continued to happen and I was unable to see the movie itself until just last weekend.

I know it received very mixed reviews. Let me add my two cents. The movie had me gripped for the first three quarters. I felt the director and actors did a very good job of recreating the story. They removed what they had to remove and I was totally OK with that. What they left in was great and it all seemed to mesh. The fact that it was so faithful to the source material was awesome and the effects were awesome, blah blah blah, you get the picture.

Here is what got my panties in a bunch, the last quarter of the movie. The fact that the director spent so much time lauding the fact that he was so faithful to the source then he goes and blows the ending. SPOILAGE AHEAD! If you have not read the graphic novel or seen the movie then go no further! Thank you. He chucks the giant squid and instead uses Dr. Manhattan like explosions not only in NYC, but London, Moscow, Hong Kong, etc. This just screws the whole thing up for a couple of reasons.

First, for a dramatic feel, he has NYC be the last one to go off so we as the audience could see it in it's CGI glory. This has poked a massive hole in the plot. Let me explain:

In this world both Moscow and the USA have their fingers on the button. Moscow gets hit by what they think is Dr. Manhattan, who they think still works for the US. (It is mentioned that they think the whole "Dr. Manhattan running off to Mars" is a publicity stunt to get the Russians to make a move.) The "Russian Button" is now pressed. Seriously, would anything else have happened? Now, not only does New York get hit with a huge "Dr. Manhattan Bomb" but now the US is going to get rammed with all Russian Nukes that are available. If New York was first, and they thought it was Dr. Manhattan then it would have worked because the US would not have blamed Russia and Russia would know when they got hit that Dr. Manhattan has gone rogue. Small detail but pretty big when you think about it. Could have been avoided if he stayed faithful like he did for the first part.

And now the biggie that really fell flat for me. The very end when the newspaper guys are talking about how the world is all puppies and sunshine and there is nothing to write about they decide to check out the "crank file". On top is Rorschach's journal. In the graphic novel this carried weight because it pointed the finger at Adrian Veidt. Granted Rorschach didn't know the extent of the plan but he knew there was a plan. The journal would have started the ball rolling to potentially out the secret and the world would fall into chaos again. In the movie that feeling was lost because Dr. Manhattan still could have gone rogue without Veidt's help. It just would have pointed the finger at Veidt for the murder of the Comedian and Molock and for the Dr. Manhattan cancer scare. The worst would have been Veidt being blamed for making Dr. Manhattan go rogue. He is villified and the world stays at peace for now. It fizzled.

Now I'm told the director's cut is better. I would like to see that now to see if there is anything different. But I was disappointed.

What did you think?