Heh, okay I've been lazy long enough in writing my review of Watchmen, so here goes nothing.
Simply put, the movie is incredible. I went to the Midnight release of the film on Thursday, and was pretty much blown away by it, so much so that I actually couldn't formulate a review of it, because what I watched was so incredible. It was literally watching a Comic Book come to life, much like 300 was. Not just any comic, mind you, but the Comic some consider to be the best ever written. This is the story, along with The Dark Knight Returns, that changed Comic Books forever. Like how when Marvel Comics first started, it carried Comic Books out of it's infancy, this story carried Comic Books out of their teenage years and brought them to adult hood.
Mind you, this is only a Film adaptation of the Comic Book, but it's almost as close as you can get to the original story. I say almost, because this film isn't even the final version of it. Much like Lord of the Rings, this film has an extended version coming out later on this year. First, you have the Animated "Tales of the Black Freighter" DVD coming out soon, which I will simply rent. Then, you have the Extended Directors Cut coming out in July, which adds in the scenes that Zack Snyder had to take out in order to keep this film at 3 hours length. The extended version is said to have 30-60 minutes of extra footage put into it. THEN, around X-Mas time, you have the Final Cut DVD, which is the Extended Version with the animated "Tales of the Black Freighter" tale put into the movie just like how it is in the Comic Book. So, as awesome as the film was, it's not the final version of it.
However, for what it was, it was fantastic. As mentioned up above, the opening credits Montage was simple beautiful. It shows scenes that were only talked about in the comic book, and they were simply beautiful to see brought to life, especially to the Bob Dylan song they played for it. Jackie Earle Haley completely stole the show as Rorschach. Quite frankly, he was perfect. In terms of performance, his was the best. Also, Jeffrey Dean Morgan was also fantastic as The Comedian. Actually, I'll just say it now, everyone played their part extremely well. The worst acting out of everyone came from Malin Ackerman who played Silk Spectre II. Mind you, she was definitely hot eye candy, but her acting was sub-par. Her mother wasn't much better either. Overall though, fantastic casting.
The movie is not without it's faults, but IMO, those faults do not take away from the enjoyment of the film, especially if you are a fan of the Comic Book. I can see how people who have not read the comic might not like the movie, but that's all a matter of opinion. Honestly, after seeing this, I really really hope that the Green Lantern movie in the works in done in this format. I'd really love to see a GL movie done like this. My high expectations for this film were met with flying blue glowing [ray splasher]! If you are a fan of the book, definitely see this movie. If you've never read the book, Read It then see the movie, or visa versa. If you wanna see blue glowing [ray splasher], DEFINITELY see this movie!