Look, if you haven't seen the film yet, you're not qualified to comment about the ending.

*slight spoiler*

The ending of the film is not significantly different than the ending of the graphic novel. There's just no giant squid.

I don't think the giant squid would have worked in the film. Snyder's ending is much better, and makes much more sense.

And as somebody who found 300 tedious, I have to say that "The Watchmen" is very, very good. It lives up to what the graphic novel needs. For long stretches of the film, entire dialogues are taken from the graphic novel, and many of the most dominant frames are replicated exactly - such as The Comedian falling out of his window, followed shortly thereafter by Rorschach climbing in the same window. Even the two henchmen of Big Figure are nearly identical to the drawings in the book.

I think the biggest change is that Nite Owl II is less of a wimp. This is a very, very big change. Nite Owl II's equivocation about pretty much everything is a central part of the post-modern landscape of the graphic novel.

Another point to make: O'Hehir is not really being fair to lump Rorschach and The Comedian together as violence-prone psychotics. Rorschach only hurts bad guys. He still has a difference in his mind between right and wrong, whereas the Comedian just sees wrong everywhere.

Nightfly: you do know that the graphic novel ended with pretty much the same message right? The scene with Nite Owl II and the two women was the same as it was in the graphic novel. If you feel the movie belittled the deaths, don't you have to feel the same way about the original? It didn't end in Antarctica, after all.

Orb93: does your review in any way relate to the movie, the graphic novel, or the review? Or do you just like typing a lot?

elektro87: A lot of us read The Watchmen not periodically, but only when the graphic novel came out. And it was pretty common to do so in one sitting. From that perspective, the film does not proceed at "breakneck speed". It's 163 minutes, long, which is an hour more than most superhero films.

Nixon was to the left of Obama.

I suggest you read up on "Wage and Price Controls". Also, see who signed the Clear Air Act, while you're at it.

Obama, like the Clintons, John Kerry, and many of the leading Democrats, have positioned themselves slightly to the left of Reagan, figuring that anybody further to the left will be forced to vote for them or face GOP rule.

@Kegan

You know, the economy is a wee bit more complicated than a pep rally.

re: biggeranium

I hope you are so glib when the Secret Service pays a visit. They take death threats very seriously.

Every public discussion of his criticisms of whatever Obama is doing should include that caveat.

The reason the President isn't doing what McCain wants him to do is...McCain isn't the President!

Even the atheists among us relish the sense that some eternal, celestial force has finally descended, to cure our blindness and set us free.

I wonder how this would be received if it were

Even the Jews among us relish the divine resurrection of Jesus our Lord and savior.

Atheists, by definition, are not sitting around waiting for an eternal, celestial force. Attributing theistic sentiments to atheists is pure idiocy.

It appears to be based largely on cooking books, high-risk trading, and rigging executive bonuses to be as much as possible. The executives are looting the company, which is looting the federal budget.

They buy politicians using their ill-gotten gains and then the bankers and politicians jointly run PR campaigns to bamboozle the American public.

My objection here is not with the bonuses so much as with the notion that AIG should be allowed to continue to exist at all. They failed. They should be out of business.

People need to own up to the fact that the current model for financial success, if the AIG gambit is allowed to succeed, is to off-load all the risk onto the backs of taxpayers. This is not merely an immoral business plan, it's also one that is doing a lot of damage to the economy.

Funny, but I don't know any Democrats who "see the halo". We like Obama because he meets the pathetically low standard of

a) not lying to the country to justify the invasion of another country

b) not basing his science policy on medieval principles

c) looking for peaceful resolutions to problems

d) not using the military might of the US to hide his own personal insecurity

I'm sorry you think that people believe in "a halo". This kind of language, including the notion that Obama is "the Messiah", etc., is all based on what Republicans think Democrats think, right? It's not what actual Democrats think.

If you were an actual Democrat, you would know this already.