Watchmen

There's lots of reviews floating around out there on the Watchman movie, most of them flogging the movie for poorly adapting its source material. Here's the review from CNN.

I don't agree with this guy, but at least he read the book, which likely isn't the case with some of the written opinions of the Watchmen. The controversy swirling around this movie has always been how anyone would film the "unfilmable" movie. So it strikes me as a bit lazy and tired to read reviews bitching about how Snyder stuck too closely to the graphic novel:

"Snyder slavishly transcribes what's set down 5 inches in front of his face."

but somehow also adapted the movie enough to also invite this criticism:

"On the few occasions where the filmmakers do exercise their imaginations -- in a credit montage relating the glory days of the crimefighters Weegee-style, and in a neat improvement on Moore's climax -- the results are actually ingenious and sharp."

From the git-go, Snyder and the team that worked on this film were damned if they do, equally damned if they don't. I think the film did a great job of capturing the angst of washed up superheroes, the vigilantism and detective work of Rorschach, and the fear of an over dramatized Cold War conflict. Few book to movie translation ever go well because opinions vary widely on the inevitable editing and contracting that must be done when the source material is squeezed on to the big screen.

Snyder did about as good a job as anyone could have.