I do. Or more to the point I watched the Watchmen movie this last Wednesday. While I did read the graphic novel I didn't read any reviews or opinions of the movies. I did know that it was getting very mixed reviews which isn't uncommon for a comic book movie and I've even heard of groups of people walking out of the movie and I can say, now that I've seen the movie, that I may just understand why.
Watchmen (wikilink) is not your average Spidy or Sups comic book hero movie no very far from it in fact. Lots of people die in this comic book movie and it's not always the bad guys either would probably allow for some of the bad reviews and people walking out if they thought this was just another Spidy like comic book movie.
Then you have another reason and probably the only thing that I can say that I really didn't care for during the movie. The gratuitous male nudity. Obviously there isn't any nudity in the comic book so when you get multiple scenes of Mr Manhattan in his blue birthday suit (even after you know that the man knows to cover up damnit) it comes as a bit of a shock especially since it just doesn't happen once or twice. Yeah maybe now I know how women feel about gratuitous female nudity in other movies. Also another reason why people may have walked out of the movie. Lets face it a bunch of comic book geeks don't want to see naked man flesh they want to see naked girly flesh.
Now we get to the last reason I think people didn't like the movie. The ending. If you've read the book more than likely you liked the book version better than the movie version. In the movie to save time they had to cut out a lot of superfluous side stories including the artificial alien which is the escape goat in the comic book. Since they had to cut that out they had to come up with a different ending which means Mr Manhattan was made to be the escape goat instead. Personally I didn't like that but it was a time saver and it was able to wrap up the story neatly and keep the rest of the end intact.
Other than a bit too much man flash and a different ending I was rather pleased with the movie. I thought they did a good job of cutting out some of the other superfluous stories and side tracks and I liked how they glossed over a lot of the history of the other older masked heroes in the beginning credits. I also liked that they didn't kill Mr. Hollis in the movie, I didn't like that part of the comic book. This is definitely an adult comic book movie though and it doesn't pull any punches or tame down the comic book in any way which is something that after I read the comic book I was afraid would happen. I would definitely recommend this film but think those that have already read the comic book will enjoy it more than those that haven't.
