Saturday night, I made my way into Chinatown to watch The Watchmen.

I’m going to start with this: if you’re going to adapt a book into a film, either it needs to be a really short book, or it needs to be a book you don’t mind butchering to fuck. Alternatively, you might want to see if you can sell it as a miniseries instead. Really, off the top of my head, Harry Potter & The Order of the Phoenix is pretty close to a picture-perfect example of a great adaptation of a book, capturing the text in broad strokes while keeping a stead pace. Compare that film with the first Harry Potter film, and you’ll see what I mean (especially if you’ve read the books): the first film follows Rowling’s story almost to the letter, but, holy fuck, it just goes on and on and on.

Sort of like Watchmen. Which just keeps going and going and going. It’s like the damn Energizer bunny.

I didn’t think Watchmen was bad. I just didn’t think it was great, either. I’m assuming Snyder had considerable input on the script, and I wish he’d been a bit more brutal in trimming out story elements. Part of me hates to say that, but I think Alan Moore was right on the money when he said his comic was “unfilmable.” It’s not just a matter of using a comic as a script and storyboard, you’ve actually got adapt the story for a totally different medium.

And that just didn’t happen here.

I didn’t think Watchman was a bad film. But I don’t think it should have been a film — rather, one film. It probably would have worked considerably better as two or three films, released over a couple of years. Most likely, I think the miniseries format — all too often overlooked, or treated only as a vehicle for “back door pilots” — would have allowed Snyder the ability to full and faithfully recreate Alan Moore’s Watchmen.

Some specific reactions:

The opening montage is the (seriously) best part of the film. Without a doubt.

Patrick Wilson as Dan/Nite Owl and Jackie Haley as Rorschach were, to my mind, perfect. Haley captured his character, particularly at the end: “Do it. DO IT!”

Given how long the film runs, and how much time had to be cut from the film, it kind of boggles the mind how long some of the fight sequences were. In particular, the opening sequence between the Comedian and his assailant drags on far too long: Two other fight sequences strike me as overlong, both involving Dan and Laurie: first, in the alley, and second, in the prison. Did we really need all that?

During the flashback where Kovacs “becomes” Rorschach for the first time … I preferred the way it was presented in the book.

Dr. Manhattan’s ‘Little Bronx’ was dangling all about. The first few times we, the audience, experienced full-frontal super hero nudity, everyone gasped (and a couple of people giggled). This I need to stress: there are so much blue balls in this film (literally) that by the finale, everyone had, I think, seen as much blue penis as they’d ever need to. Well, except a coworker of mine who told me today that she though Dr. Manhattan’s penis was the best part of the film (much to her husband’s obvious chagrin, I’m sure).

The ending has been changed. In the book, Veidt has developed some impressive technologies, and teleports a gigantic alien-squid thing into the center of New York City. Fearing that Earth is about to be invaded by aliens, the planet unites. There’s actually a lot more to it than that, but it already kind of sounds ridiculous as is. In the movie, Veidt destroys several cities across the globe in a method which frames Dr. Manhattan as the culprit: fearful of Manhattan’s vengeance if the world doesn’t change its ways, nations unite. Y’know what? As an ending, it works.