Review: Watchmen

I went out to see Watchmen on Thursday night with my brother and a few friends. It was a midnight showing which was probably a bad idea seeing as I had work the next day, but I did it anyway. The movie was good. They did a great job of adapting the novel. The scenes, background, and characters were all very faithfully reproduced. The problems with the movie were few but deadly.
First was the choice to show Dr. Manhattan like he is in the comics. Part of his personality is a certain disconnection from regular human society. One way this manifests is his disregard for clothes. He appears naked in many panels of the comic and so appears naked in many scenes in the movie. The film makers did a good job of limiting the amount of time he is shown naked from the front but they also don't force awkward cover-ups in order to censor the image. I wouldn't have done it any other way, but this limits the possible appeal of the film to more conservative moviegoers.
Another problem that is actually a flaw and not a regrettable reality is the music. The soundtrack includes quite a few good songs central to the times and places where the events unfold. The problem is that it happens too many times. There are far too many music breaks and musical montages where you are almost beaten about the head and shoulders by an iconic song perfectly representative of the era and mood.
Lastly there is a love scene in the movie that is a bit too long. I find that in love scenes the goal is to describe to the viewer the emotions between the participants and then get out of there before it becomes pornographic. So to achieve this purpose you generally don't show more than two positions. This scene had more like four positions and had me thinking 'what kind of movie am I watching here?' I am aware that this is not a rule written in stone as the sex scene in "the Thomas Crown Affair" was sensual and expressive but this one seemed uncomfortable and a bit unreal for the characters.
To wrap up The Watchmen was an excellent movie and I recommend it to anyone who enjoys comic book films or hero films or action films. Just think twice and maybe three times before you bring young children.