Tuesday, March 10, 2009

I just can't help myself...I'm becoming a total nerd.

So, today I saw the movie "Watchmen". I have to say that it was one of the better movies that I have seen to date. The last time I paid money to see a movie in theaters was last Novemember when I went with a friend to see the movie "Twilight"; the last time I had been to a movie in a theater before then was in the summer of 2007. Needless to say, I only go see movies if I am convinced they are going to be killer.

With the Twilight movie, I was highly disappointed. I am a fan of the books and the movie was far enough off track that I could not get into it. At first I liked it ok, more or less because I was in need of a chick flick, but the more I thought about it, the more I hated it. It's the same thing with the Harry Potter films; I have read and re-read all the books and the movies are just lacking something - it's hard for me to enjoy them.

But the movie "Watchmen" was a whole other ball park. I had never heard of the Watchmen before the movie hype started, but the trailers convinced me that it was worth investigating further. I knew that I wanted to see the movie, I just wasn't sure if I wanted to pay to see it or wait until it came out on DVD.

So I went to the bookstore Friday and bought the graphic novel. Granted, it took me four days to read (I generally have books done within one or two days), but I think the reason behind that was that the book had so much information to take in that I could not read it when I was tired. For those four days, I was so enthralled in the book that last night I started to dream about it.

Because the book was so good, I knew for sure that I wanted to see the movie. I think that I had had my mind made up by about the end of chapter one that it was a movie I was willing to spend money on. So today (as stated above), I went to see it. I was not disappointed.

The movie was incredibly well done. There were a few scenes that were a bit more gory than they probably had to be, but the acting and the emphasis on the characters ( the graphic novel is very much a character story as well as an action story ) blew my mind. In the end, pretty much the only thing that was different from the original story was the end (which I won't spoil), but it ultimately ended on the same note as the book.

My favorite character from the book is a vigilante named Rorschach, who has a strange sense of right and wrong. I was concerned about how he was going to be portrayed in the movie (for some reason, my favorite characters are usually the ones that get screwed up in movie translations), which was a valid fear going into it. However, the actor who played him, Jackie Earle Haley, did an amazing job and completely stole the show for me.

The other actors in the film also did a great job and when put together with the special effects, it was as though the graphic novel came to life.

One thing is for sure: this whole experience has turned me into a die hard Watchmen fan.