Blue balls

No, no, my significant other does not suffer from any sexual dysfunction involving testicles (I make sure of that, ha-cha cha-cha). However, I have to admit I was left wanting more by Watchmen.

(Plus, hello, did you see Doc Manhattan's junk enough? No? Eighteen penis shots in one film just not enough?)

I love the graphic novel, and I wanted to love the movie--I mean, hell, I went to see it at midnight in IMAX; I wanted it to be another slam-dunk along the lines of 300. Maybe mythologizing history works better when that history is already half-myth, or maybe the graphic novel of Watchmen is simply more complex than 300--duh--but something about this film experience left me cold. Visually it's amazingly evocative of a graphic novel, and the fight scenes are intense, the soundtrack is fun, the opening credits are full of information and simultaneously enjoyable to watch, the casting is mostly good (particularly The Comedian)...so what's the problem?

No idea. Maybe too much of Billy Crudup's dick. Maybe too much of Matthew Goode's bronzer, Malin Akerman's hair, Patrick Wilson's aviator eyeglasses and impotence. Maybe too much reverence--that might be it. So faithful an adaptation leaves you with an embalmed feeling.

After a few days' thought:

I have decided that my main problem with this movie is not that it's too close to the graphic novel, but rather that it doesn't necessarily pick out the points of the novel which are most salient and most critical to understanding what Watchmen is all about. I mean, Nite Owl and Ozy and all the rest AREN'T superheroes. THAT is the point that it seems like Snyder and Co. didn't get, and which does not translate onto the screen.