Thoughts on Watchmen

- The opening credits sequence in this movie is amazing and had me convinced this would be The Godfather of comic book movies. It's not, but it's pretty close, certainly better than The Dark Knight.
- Even the bad reviews seem to all agree that Jackie Earle Haley knocked it out of the park as Rorschach. Now all he has to do is die and he can get an Oscar like Heath Ledger.
- On reflection, Patrick Wilson as Nite Owl was the 2nd best performance. Considering how much the character is generally overshadowed by the rest of the cast, it's impressive how well I can remember his scenes. The man's got it.
- This has got to be the most brutally violent superhero movie ever made (unless the last Punisher movie was worse). At first it bothered me, but I realized that most films in this genre tend to show violence without showing its consequences. People get a thrill out of seeing people get beat up, as long as it's sanitized. To me that numbs us to violence much more than actually showing the horrific results of a superhero-style beatdown.
- Everything they changed for the movie was changed for the worse. Yet they didn't change anything particularly important to the characters or plot (with that one big exception, which needed a change anyway). I'm in awe of this.
- No way is the movie going to stay #1 this weekend. I'll be even surprised if it comes in at #2. Unless the fans somehow organize a large-scale movement to bump its ticket sales, it'll slide out of the top 10 easily. It was never gonna be a big hit anyway since it's trying to appeal to two entirely different sets of moviegoers (comics fans and people who aren't comics fans), etc.
- Right now opinion on it seems to be split. To me that's a good sign that maybe in the years to come it'll be accepted as if not a great film, at least one that still has a large following. DVD sales, for one thing, are gonna be astronomical.
- For some reason, it actually got me excited to see the American Death Note movie. I think the two comics share some of the same cool themes (Light = Adrian?) and if it's done as faithfully as this one was, it could be awesome.
- Then again, it would be cool if this were the beginning of the end for the age of superhero movies. Maybe it'll make traditional superhero films obsolete the way the comic did for its own traditional stories.
- The fact that I'm still thinking about it 5 days later is either a feat in itself or proof that I'm a loser with no hobbies.