Watchmen

Yes. Definitely see Watchmen.

I really need to reserve final judgement for after a second viewing because I'm still not really sure what the movie was about or why the things that were happening in the movie were happening. I went into the movie with a clean slate; I hadn't seen any other new movies so no lemon sorbet was needed to cleanse my movie palate. I didn't read the "most celebrated graphic novel of all time" so I couldn't be clouded by whether or not the book was better (or whatever it is you snobby book-readers always complain about whenever your latest favorite novel is brought to life on the big screen.) The fact that I started watching Watchmen, a three hour event, at 1am probably had a lot to do with it. At 3 in the morning, after working all day, even a brilliant piece of Oscar-worthy filmmaking will turn into a muffled mass of lights and sounds that fade away. Watchmen, however, even from the most superficial perspective, was worth the price of admission... it was eye-candy at it's sugary sweetest.

What I did get from it, was an entertaining mixture genres and styles combining a lot of science-fiction, fantasy, campy and serious superhero genres (like Spider-man and The Dark Knight), Film Noir, romance, disaster, and epic action-adventure all rolled into one... and done well.

I love that Warner had the balls to release it with an R-rating and that the filmmakers didn't hold back. This is definitely not for children of uptight parents and it's unfortunate that the MPAA doesn't take into account just how much of the pole is actually up the viewer's (or the viewer's parents') ass. While the film is laden with bloody violence, including attempted rape, vulgarities, and a superfluous amount of "floppy blue penis", it is done, if you can believe it, tastefully. The villans are the ones doing the R-rated things, so the audiences' perception should be that those things are bad. The parent of a younger teen could remove said pole from his/her ass long enough to watch the movie with them and then talk about it... NOTE TO PARENTS: Your kid is no angel... they will try to sneak into this movie... THE THEATRE'S STAFF CANNOT CATCH THEM ALL. If you don't want your child to watch it on their own and get bad ideas in their heads, watch it with them and put good ideas in their heads. ::END RANT::

As I said earlier, I really can't comment on plot/story because I really don't know anything about it. I will say that it did seem to run a little bit long, but I was entertained enough just by the pretty lights and loud noises to recommend that you watch Watchmen... in theatres... at a normal hour. You'll probably get more out of it than I did... and I enjoyed it.