Watchmen

I’ve just come back from seeing Watchmen, and it’s the best film I have seen this year. For anyone who has read the graphic novel, I think you will find it an absolute delight, because it *is* the graphic novel, but it moves. A mixture of good casting and makeup means that all of the characters look just right, and the shooting uses many of the same angles as in the original – clearly they used the book as the storyboard.

With one notable exception, there were no changes to the overall plot, and although many of the subplots were missing (how else are you going to make tell the story in two and half hours?), it was more that they were left untold, rather than missing completely. So we still saw the comic-reading boy, and the newspaper seller, we just didn’t get to hear their story.

As for the notable change – I am not going to go into details here, but I can imagine some die-hard fans may be dissatisfied with any change to Alan Moore’s story. However, I felt like applauding, as it was elegant and in the spirit of the original, and was probably what made it possible to tell the story in less than 6 hours.

A wonderful soundtrack, by the way, and the first time I have ever heard Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” used in a film in the correct context; and using Cohen’s own version, no less.

If you comment here, please don’t post any spoilers. I may make a second post later, with spoiler warnings, were we can go into more detail.