Slightly Off-Topic

I won’t go into too much detail as I like to keep Slightly Off-Topic family-friendly. Let’s just say that for those of you that are familiar with the comic and were assuming that Hollywood would make changes to the costuming… not so much. They dressed Doc Manhattan just as they did in the comic.
You’ve been warned.

Below this point there be spoilers!

So, what did I think of the movie? I liked it. I was quite surprised by the very mixed reactions heard from the movie-goers as they were leaving the theater, but I suspect that the extra hour in the director’s cut promised for the dvd release will make this a must have that everyone can agree on.

What I liked:

• They managed Doc Manhattan’s time shifting narrative much better than I thought they could. I thought it dragged in the comic, but they played it well in the movie. The Doc also gave a nice detached persona, as one would expect, but I’m not sure he pulled the emotional points off as well as could have been done.
• Rorschach was great. They nailed him. I don’t get why they cut some rather significant scenes though. It kinda hurt the narrative, and I don’t understand the change to the kidnapped girl scene. It seems gratuitous, but maybe they were just trying to keep from using a bit that has appeared in crappy horror flicks.
• Night Owl was great. He and Rorschach really pulled off their characters as intended from the source.
• The intro was great in that it covered a lot of the necessary world history without a lot of the dragging down of pace that was present in the source material.

What I didn’t like:

• Ozymandias was miss-cast. Period. This is the man that wants to carry on the work of Alexander the Great and Ramses II. Too slight and soft-spoken for the character.
• They cut a lot of the psych scenes. I expect it will return in the dvd.
• I was okay with them changing the mechanism for the ending, but have a hard time buying what they came up with in the end. I don’t buy it as a long-standing deterrent.

Just my thoughts, but I’d easily give it a 3.5 out of five, and suspect the director’s cut will go even higher, but we’ll have to wait and see.