Finished WATCHMEN last night
In several episodes of my podcast, I’ve gone on record saying that WATCHMEN is my most anticipated movie of 2009. Unfortunately, I have been basing my anticipation purely on the hype and the word of mouth praise I had heard about the graphic novel long before it was announced as a movie. Well, last night I finished the Graphic Novel and I can finally say that my excitement is grounded in something concrete.
It’s kind of weird that WATCHMEN has been heralded as ‘unfilmable’ when the graphic novel is drawn as if it were a story board for the grand vision of what would one day become a film. Even the writing itself and the narrative style is so cinematic that it’s just begging for a spot on the big screen. From what I’ve been hearing from people who’ve attended early screenings, the WATCHMEN movie is an extremely faithful adaptation, so I guess we’ll all see how ‘unfilmable’ it really is.
I know there isn’t exactly a lot of time left, but I highly advise anyone interested in this film to read the graphic novel first. The story is really good, really deep, it’s epic in both it’s scope and scale, but it’s also very grim. I have a feeling that the film won’t be completely accessible to all the people who’ve been pulled in by the Hype. I guess we’ll know come Monday.
posted by Christopher Schnese
