I saw the movie yesterday. It's not like it's my all-time greatest movie experience or anything, but I liked it. It was fun watching the comic come to life. Rorsach is absolutely great in the movie... and I think Dr Manhattan was great too, it became even more obvious how disconnected he is from normal humanity when everyone else looks human and he's a glowing CGI freak. In the book he looks like everyone else except blue and with white eyes, since they're all pictures drawn in the same style,but in the movie he's way more different. And just like Gollum in LOTR they somehow managed to convey lots of emotions and character through a CGI.
I think you understood Sally Jupiter's character in the comic book, here too much was cut out, you didn't get a grip on her. But it was inevitable to leave large chunks out when making a movie for the theatres. And apparently loads and loads of stuff will be put in the DVD edition. My only real complaint is that the fighting scenes look like Hong Kong action stuff. That was a stupid decision, given that the whole premis for the book and the movie is "what would the world be like if real people dressed up in costumes to fight crime?". Well, according to the movie they would all gain superpowers to
some extent. Silly.
There was only one point where the movie made a smart decision about a fight scene, and that's
 Spoilers! |
at the end when Ozymandias catches a bullet in his hand. In the comic book he actually catches it in his bare hand, and suddenly comes off as a genuinely superpowered being. In the movie he's got a glove on, that looks like it has some layer of kevlar or the like in the palm which the bullet is caught in. So he still comes off as extremely fast, with reflexes way beyond the average human being, but still not invulnerable. |
. And although it's probably blasphemy for a comic book nerd to say this, I think the slightly changed ending was an improvement.
But the movie would probably have been a greater experience if I hadn't read the book first, so I didn't know in advance what would happen. Everyone who has read the book first says the movie must be incomprehensible if you haven't. But reviews from people who actually haven't read the book seem to be largely positive, they think it's very exciting and interesting to see how the plot evolves but not at all impossible to follow. So... I think us people who
have read the book just have trouble imagining what it would be like without that knowledge.