Who watches the Watchmen? I do

I saw Watchmen. The verdict from Jeff and Emily is in: FAIL! What do I think? Well, you've come to the right place!

I appreciate this film tackling the superhero genre from a different angle, that of normal, very flawed people fighting crime, most of whom are either retired or forgotten. We've also got a terrible Richard Nixon impersonator in the White House and it's 1985.

The opening fight and the title sequence are well done, the pages of a graphic novel translated to the screen with some great choices for music. It also goes without saying that some of the special effects and images in this movie are impressive. However, I do find myself less impressed by special effects now that every movie seems to have them. Think of a billionaire finding 500,000 in his or her pockets. Been there, done that.

Frankly, it tried to pack in too much. Too many scenes that did not matter and could easily have been cut. There's a final showdown that falls under its own weight with overwrought, comic book diatribes. And the junior Silk Spectre? The acting just did not cut it. The romance angle with her bored me. Every big superhero movie has to throw a romantic angle at the audience, but I wanted to drop it or duck out of the way.

Mini-spoiler alert.....

Did they show the Comedian killing JFK in the opening credits? How do you just toss that into a movie as an aside? Perhaps its covered in the graphic novel, but that doesn't excuse it.

As any journalist will tell you, it's cutting things out that makes a good article a great one. Better editing would not make this a classic, but it could have made it a very good movie. And having a more coherent ending would help as well. It's interesting and bold, for which I give the movie some credit, but it just falls flat.

I give this film the patented Steve Sears rating.

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