Watchmen: Everyone calm the hell down.

I'm going to do my best to make a simple point and not use too many words doing it. Alan Moore's name is not attached to the film called Watchmen. Zach Snyder, though well-intentioned, doesn't have the author's blessing, and that gives the die-hard fans of Moore's seminal work a great way out. If you decide to check out Watchmen the film, and you decide it doesn't measure up to Watchmen the book, then you can decide to keep your ethereal view of the work just as pure and glowing as ever. Moore's actually gone on record as saying he's not going to bother watching it, and some of his most stalwart fans should consider doing the same. Let's face it, if you're one of the original converts, the ones who discovered the book before there was talk of a film (or at least before you became aware of it, because THAT talk has been around for 2 decades), can it really get any better?

Maybe. I mean, I started from zero last night, so for me, it's a different experience. I had a sense of the overwhelming legendary-ness of the book, which shines through, if nowhere else, in the film's 160 minute runtime. But I didn't feel it dragged, not much. Twenty minutes less wouldn't have hurt, but there was no large chunk of the film that stood out as being easily removable. I enjoyed it all the way through.

The characters were interesting. Not universally likable, but no one was really trying for that, I gather. And again, I didn't have any sense of them going in, so it was all up to the actors. And they all did, at the very least, well. Even Malin Akerman, who seems to be a running thread in the negative criticism of the film's acting merits. She is the weakest link, but Laurie's character isn't very well-written compared to the rest, so she did her best. The rest, by the way, get better (Carla Gugino and Matthew Goode) and better still (Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Patrick Wilson and Billy Crudup) and finally iconic. Many other people have beaten me to the punch in proclaiming Jackie Earle Haley's Rorschach to be gripping and, in the long run, a defining role in his career. It's one of the film's best assets. He is horrifying in his commitment to a character who cannot compromise.

The world of Watchmen is a character itself, and it's been animated here to great success. It's dripping with perpetual cold war fear, and uses as elements some of the worst parts of American history (McCarthyism, even). And it's realized on screen by fantastic production design and captivating cinematography. The backdrop is a crumbling, broken civilization and while the camera remains distant, with a few too many slow-mo ramp ups and downs, the world is convincingly and irredeemably filthy.

It's violent, too... as in rated R, but if you can imagine someone screaming the letter 'R' at you, that might be close. Or sawing off your hands while they're yelling, that would be closer, still. At times it was so graphic it was distracting, and I've wracked my brain trying to come up with a good reason for that level of bone breaking, body exploding, power-saw brutality. I guess it was all very stylized. But otherwise, too much.

Snyder has no problem with style of course, and in the case of the violence manages to put the film more than a little over the top. In other things, like music, it all worked for me. Some people have brought up varying arguments with the use of 'Hallelujah', 'All Along the Watchtower', and '99 Red Balloons', but I loved all that. I can only assume everyone else had a different song playing in their head when they read the book.

So, in the end, Watchmen was an enjoyable film to me. I liked it. I didn't love it, and I wouldn't go wild recommending to tons of people. The violence will repel some, others will dodge thanks to the length, the overall broodiness of it, or maybe even because it's a grand pop-pastiche. Some people don't like pop, I'm told. But for the book lovers, if you wanted a trophy of some kind to go home with, then know that I won't be speaking to people about this film the way you do about the book. Now let it go so we can start arguing over Star Trek.