Watchmen... Rated R... Fuckin' A

"On Friday night, a comedian died in New York" and for the next 161 minutes we were following closely the investigation on his murder.

There was a lot of hype during these last few months. And with great hype comes great responsibility. Like the Dark Knight, there were some moments that I doubted if the movie would stand up to all these expectations. I was so glad to be proven wrong.

Plot-wise, a lot of the source material is missing, or is changed. But the important thing is that Watchmen, is there. All the meanings, comments and questions that the Graphic Novel sets are on the screen. When the movie ended, I was having the same discussions I had when I finished the graphic novel.

Having said that, the film is really faithful to the graphic novel, and all the changes done were the absolutely necessary. See, it's a different medium and it works in a different way. For example, a lot of the dialogue or narration was simplified, but in the movie you don't have the luxury of going back and reading "that bit" again, and take your time like in the graphic novel. In order to make sure you get everything that this piece of art stands for, in a medium that moves 25 pictures per second forward, the dialogue just had to be changed.

In short, this movie is not the graphic novel. However, it is the most faithful way it could ever be presented on the big screen. It is 161 minutes of character study, political and religious commentary and philosophical and ethical questions. So, in that matter, it is Watchmen. It is the Watchmen movie.

The characters were great, all of them were amazing actors. My personal choice would be, of course, Rorschach and The Comedian. I consider the Comedian's role one of the hardest for the film, cause he is a savage, brutal man, he has committed atrocities but there is a very human character underneath all that, and in the end Jeffrey Dean Morgan convinces us to sympathize with him. He deserves a fucking Oscar just for that.

Jackie Earl Haley is the ultimate star of the movie. Especially in the scenes without his mask, you can really see his commitment to what he's doing. Dan, Dr. Manhattan, Veidt and even Laurie were nothing short of brilliant, amazing, fully three dimensional characters, distorted mirror images of every living person on earth.

It is not a film to be viewed once, that's for sure. You don't walk away from it, I'm already looking forward to my next visit. There's so much in these 161 minutes, that the film feels really tight. You will want to see it again, and I believe, just like with the Graphic Novel, each viewing will be better than the previous one.

Another thing I really appreciated was the rating. It was rated R, and I liked that, not so much because of the violence/nudity (it was raw, but not something we've never seen before, Punisher was a lot more violent), but because of the audience it attracted. We watched the film in a sold-out 450 capacity screen, and we didn't hear a sound for almost three hours. No kiddies crying, no fucking drunk teenagers, just people who actually came to see the film. I want every film to be rated R. It was also the first time I've been to the cinema, that after the film ended, people were cheering, clapping. That must say something about the film.

As I watch reviews and stuff, I see that the world of critics is totally divided. Half of them praise it, the other half buries it. Let them go fuck themselves. I say we need more films like that, films that make our heads spin a little bit, make us think.

A big thank you goes to Alan Moore, who created the whole story/universe to begin with, and Zack Snyder, who managed to make the best translation when others couldn't (others like Terry Gilliam and Paul Greengrass). Well done guys, we need more of that stuff.