Watchmen: A Dot Point Review

Now that I've slept off the midnight screening, an actual reaction post.

One thing that's surprised me is how extensively this film is dividing the audience. It's not even polarising people into love and hate - I've seen a dozen shades of opinion, and plenty of people seem to fall between the extremes.

I've seen reactions from fans of the comic who think it wasn't faithful enough, and from others who think it was too faithful and became plodding and laboured as a result. I've seen reviews from mainstream critics who embraced it and rushed out to buy the book, and others who thought it a confusing mess. I've seen complaints that the tone was too light and complaints that it was too dark. I've seen people who are 'meh' about the whole exercise. So far, no consensus seems to be emerging at all.

All I can say is what I thought. The book is my favourite comic of all time, and I really enjoyed the movie. I thought it struck a good balance in adapting the material to a new medium while remaining faithful to its spirit.

The rest of this post does not contain major spoilers for people who have read the book but not seen the film, but it MASSIVELY spoils the comic.

( Enter at own risk ... )

The parts about my reaction to the ending I'm going to put under a separate cut, with spoiler space at the beginning and end so you don't accidentally read them after clicking on the first cut or the comments.

( I refuse to directly spoil the finale, but this is my reaction to it. )