Saw Watchmen last night, and figured I'd do a very quick review.  I'm a fan of the Graphic Novel, but I'm not a hopeless fanboy, so I think I can be objective.  I stayed away from spoilers to the best of my ability, and I don't cover any material that isn't already covered in other reviews.  

I'll start with the good stuff.  The movie is visually striking.  It was like watching the graphic novel.  It was very immersive, and I really got into it.  The pacing was also excellent, and I didn't once feel bored during the movie (which is 2 hours and 43 minutes long).   The actor who plays Rorschach was pretty much perfect in the role.  I can't really complain about the actors who played Night Owl, the Silk Specter, Dr. Manhattan, and the Comedian either.  They did an adequate job.  None of them gave Oscar worthy performances, but I wasn't expecting them to.  

Now on to the bad.  The actor who plays Ozymandias is all wrong.  He looks way too young to be a man who's traveled the world.  He gave a very flat performance to boot.  The music choices were so-so.  Hallellulah was absolutely the wrong music choice when it appeared.  In fact, the scene in which it appears is just horribly executed.  The New York Times called it  the "hands-down winner of the bad movie sex award, superhero division," and I have to agree.  The same scene is the graphic novel was meant to be tender, and it just came off as silly on-screen.  Camp is not something I'd expect in a movie made from the greatest graphic novel ever written, but there it is.  

There's a lot of talk about Dr. Manhattan and his blue penis flopping around.  I honestly didn't notice it, and didn't find it distracting.  The only reason I noticed it all was because it caused fits of giggling in the audience (too many teenagers *sigh*.)  I did find the excessive violence distracting.  Yes, the graphic novel was violent, but it was violence as a means to an end, not an end unto itself.  

Considering how good most of the casting was, I couldn't get over how horrible Nixon looked.  He was like a bad caricature of Nixon, rather than the man himself.  A minor gripe, to be sure, but a legitimate one.  

I was eagerly looking forward to see this movie.  I wasn't horribly disappointed.  I'm not even the least bit upset about the plot changes, both minor and major.  They were understandable changes that were necessary in order to translate the graphic novel into a movie.  However, if I knew then what I know now, I probably wouldn't have gone on opening night.  I would have waited for a matinee.  I might even have waited until it came out on DVD.  

It was a good movie, but it was not a great movie.  It proved to me that Watchmen is not, as Alan Moore claims, unfilmable.  I do wonder, though, if it's possible to do the graphic novel justice in only 3 hours.  I think fans would have been better served by a mini series or a trilogy of movies.  There's just too much density and movement in the graphic novel to easily translate it to the screen.  My biggest complaint was that the movie felt short, even at almost 3 hours.  There's a rich movie there struggling to get out, but the execution fell flat.  There was too much emphasis of style over substance.  In the end, I came away feeling awed by the visuals, disappointed with much of the performance, and frustrated by the lack of depth, depth that was present in the graphic novel.  

And, and just a quick note to parents:  Do not bring your children to see this movie.  The theater was filled with children, many of them under ten.  I'm no prude, nor do I believe all children are the same, but the level of violence in this movie is phenomenal.  It's not a movie for kids.  There's a rape, multiple murders, bone-crushing, murder, etc, all in very graphic detail.  Leave the kids at home for this one.