And I've never wished so badly for the threatened nuclear armageddon to just happen already. Anything to end the tedium.
Some Observations:
Watchmen is the movie Quentin Tarantino would make if he lost his sense of humor, his taste in music, and his visual flair. Also his ability to hire people that can act.
Three hours is way, WAY too long for this movie. But I also can't think of a running time at which it would have been good.
Remember in The Dark Knight how whenever Christian Bale was in his batsuit, he would speak in that weird, hoarse voice that made every word he uttered painful to the ear? This movie was three hours of that. And I don't mean that in a literal way, although one of the actors did see fit to emulate Mr. Bale's delivery (added pain!). I mean it in a more metaphorical sense- Watchmen was the filmic embodiment of the Christian Bale Batman Voice.
In of itself, it didn't bother me that the movie maintains the 1980s dystopia of the comic, with all the obsolete Cold War-iness that implies. Film is often about suspension of disbelief and immersion of the viewer into something they've never experienced. After all, plenty of Cold War movies have been made that are fine and dandy, even ones that don't really have anything new to say on the subject. And there was potential- by all accounts, the source material is seminal and the anti-heroic superhero motif is usually an interesting take on the genre. But nope, even on its own terms, Watchmen was simply awful.
I don't usually walk out of movies. I know that the only thing I dislike to the point of it being unbearable is a movie that takes itself extremely, pretentiously seriously without having anything to show for it. Usually you can see films like that coming from a mile away. It never even crossed my mind that a movie based on a comic book would fall into that category. I didn't walk out of this one, but by about ten minutes in, I wanted to. Desperately.
The sole redeeming element? Glowing blue penis. However, it was only visible in wide shots- anything tighter, and suddenly you would see a glowing blue...speedo.
And finally, I'm pretty sure Paul Wolfowitz masturbated while he watched it.
All in all, I think I would have preferred this:
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