Watchmen: **1/2

On Monday, through someone's kindness, I watched the Watchmen. (Aren't you sick of hearing that already?) Just some quick disjointed thoughts because frankly, I'm not all that enthused about it.

How was it? To take a Rorschach cheapshot: Hrm.

There were moments that were truly great. The haunting and yet still cute opening montage set to Dylan's "The Time's They Are A-Changing." Dr. Manhattan's blue penis flopping around. Ozymandia's pet horn-tiger lurking around with zero backstory whatsoever. Doc and Silk Spectre having a lovers spat on Mars. Rorschach cleaving someone's head-- heck, Rorschach doing anything.

Then there was what didn't work though. At least for me, that encompassed everything I wasn't too crazy about in the first place. The damn thing is cheesy. When the Comedian has his little monologue about the American Dream gone wrong, it's a childish notion. And that's what's wrong with the source material and the movie. Now, for the record, I'm not one of those geeks that think Watchmen was the greatest graphic novel of all time. For me, that award goes to The Dark Knight Returns. As far as I'm concerned, that's the Holy Scripture. Alan Moore was always too heavy-handed and obvious for me.

Still, objectively, I think the film was bloated and overstuffed. Even at an almost three hour run time, it felt alternately rushed and under-explained. We don't learn how Rorschach got the mask and so the swirly material leaves many questions for those not in the know. Ozymandia's back story is practically non-existent; we are told he is the smartest man in the world, but it isn't demonstrated all that often. And where did everyone get those superhuman wall-demolishing punch-powers come from anyway? In the comics, everybody just had a really good gym membership. In this movie, everybody's punching through walls from the get-go with no backstory on how they got these superhuman powers.

What it really boils down to is that this shouldn't have been a movie. It should have been a six-part HBO mini-series, each part being two hours.

And here's a spoiler having to do with the controversial ending. Fans of the graphic novel, you know what we're going to talk about.

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Spoilers coming!!!

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Last chance!!!

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Here come the spoilers NOW!!!

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Yes, it's true, they cut the calamari. No giant alien squid tentacles. Instead, Ozymandia's alien conspiracy plot was replaced with a framing of Dr. Manhattan going nuclear on New York. And Dr. Manhattan goes along with it to promote peace on Earth. All things considered, I think they could have gotten away with the giant squid. I mean, after Simon & Garfunkel, Synder suddenly wanted to go for something realistic?! They went to Mars for crissake! They should've let out the Kraken.