Watchmen

How could you go so far wrong when everything looks so good? I don't know, but they managed it. God, the movie was gorgeous - colour palate, panel recreations. And yet it was such a mess.

*What terrible action sequences. It was not enough to abuse slo-mo so egregiously (I thought the movie was running at half-speed most of the time), but there was never, at any stage, any sense of danger or threat for the super-heroes. This was best represented in the scene in which Silk Spectre and Nite Owl kick their way through the prison corridor, killing actors mercilessly coming at them from both sides. You never, for a second, doubted they'd escape unharmed, and there was nothing interesting in the manner in which they dispatched the prisoners. Just boring bloody high-kicks and obligatory rock music.

*The whole point in the comic is that these are regular people playing at being heroes. In the film, all of them at some stage withstand beatings that would kill Andre the Giant, let alone a normal human being, and all of them are capable of delivering death blows without breaking a sweat. Shameful.

*Silk Spectre - Malin Ackerman delivered her lines with the petulant confusion of someone for whom English is rather a struggle.

* Ozymandias - Matthew Goode is a very competent actor but his depiction of Ozy was completely misconceived. Its supposed to be a plot twist, a reveal that Ozy's a villain so a performance that was just one shade away from Baron Von Twirly-Moustache-Nazi-Evil-Pants felt dangerously off-kilter here. If you wanted to make it obvious he was the baddie, why place in the mislead of having his faked assassination attempt? And where is the complexity of character - his doubt and remorse at murdering millions at the end that ultimately make his plan more fascinating and dreadful? He was a hairs-breadth away from a standard Bond villain, which does not make for interesting film-going.

*The sex scene. At first I thought it was a parody, and then I remembered the sex scene in 300 and realised Zach Snyder seriously wants all his sex to look like that. Ugh.

* Laurie Jupiter was always an incredibly poorly written character and this really shines through in the movie. Further to that, why soften her reaction to Manhattan feeling her up in two forms? In the comic she's completely outraged, here she's just sort of disappointed - but not enough so to let you think that she's not a slamming hot freaky-deaky lover underneath it all. After all, that's what girls are for, eh Snyder?

*If you haven't read the comic, I don't think you'd follow the movie particularly well. Overall, as a film, the movie is an epic fail. I'd rather have seen something less faithful to the aesthetics and beats of the source material and something more originally conceived, containing a sense of the comics' soul. The film's view of human behavior -as the NY times puts it -"is fundamentally immature, self-pitying and sentimental." Totally adolescent, shallow, flashy, and soulless.

*THAT SAID: The entire section in which Doctor Manhattan's creation myth is recounted is awesome, from the use of Koyaanisqatsi (sic) as the music to the incredible performance by Billy Crudup. I've always had a reasonable amount of respect for Crudup as an actor but this movie convinced me that I've been underselling him - he's amazing. He single-handedly rendered a passage that was weak in the comic (Laurie and Manhattan talk on Mars) into one of the most lyrical and moving sections of the film. Dude can act, man. Dude can act.

*I liked the opening credits sequence, which showed quite of bit of pop-savvy wit and was generally jaunty and entertaining.

*Read the comic, flag the movie.