who watches

Well, I actually went to see Watchmen last weekend, and I have this to say for it:
Huh.
I went ahead and saw the movie without reading the book, simply because I had seen multiple reports throughout the internet that the movie deviated from the original story significantly, and I remember how annoying that was when I was younger (case in point: Jurassic Park (which was a good movie, but not true to the book), and all of its sequels). I will eventually read the book, if only to see what the actual story was supposed to be like, but for the time, I have no basis for comparison.
As for the movie, it definitely gave me a feeling of trying to cover too much ground too quickly, and a lot of things ending up on the cutting room floor (which is understandable, since I understand the “Director’s Cut” will be 3.5 hours long, with the theatrical release being 2.75 hours long). Due to this, too little time was spent on certain scenes or events, but at the same time, it seemed as though far too much time was wasted on other things going on. Likewise, a lot of backstory was missing… One character said of another character, “He’s a pacifist… he could not even hurt a fly,” but this comment came right after the second character murdered twenty people, and right before the second character beat the unholy hell out of the first. There was certainly nothing in the movie indicating the second character’s “pacifism”, so we were left taking the first character at his word… which seemed a little off center, especially given that the two characters had known each other for years.
Apart from that, the special effects were appropriately impressive, the acting was, on average, acceptable, and the cultural references were interesting (after all, they used Dr. Strangelove’s war room as a war room). The movie kept me entertained for the almost-three hours it ran, but it definitely dragged in places, and I am certainly thankful I did not waste the money on an IMAX ticket.
Undoubtedly, my lacking enthusiasm for the movie will offend the fanboys out there, but I guess that is just life. I will certainly grant that the book could very well be better than the movie (it would not take much, and books typically are), but in terms of the movie itself, it seemed as though too much backstory was missing, too little character development was executed in too little time (or too much, in the case of a character who was dead for 95% of the movie), and the ending was just too blasee (and horribly acted in places). I get that the movie/book/story was supposed to portray an almost-dystopian alternate history, in a true-to-life, gritty, far-from-black-and-white way… but the purported poignancy that supposedly made the book so great seems to have failed to survive the transition to the big screen, making the movie just come off as depressing, without any of the redeeming values I am told the book has. Do not misunderstand me, this was not a bad movie… but neither was it outstanding, from either the “movie” or “story” perspectives.
Yeah, I know, I need to actually read the book, and I will, once I can find a cheap enough copy. But, for the time being, “huh”.