Review Detail

Zack Snyder's Watchmen is a strange case of being both too faithful and not faithful enough to the original work. On the one hand, all its best material is lifted directly from the source, with the character development and iconic visuals mostly intact (when its not, you really notice, though...).. On the other hand, the shock-value moments Snyder lifted directly from the comic become both trite and even crass when translated to the silver screen, as the comic excess just doesn't have the same punch when seen in a format that crossed those borders long ago. It was said for a long time that Watchmen was unfilmable (like Lord of the Rings) and this film is an interesting experiment as to why, as it was adapted by someone that loved the content of the comic but was mostly if not completely ignorant of the comic's satiric bent.

Regarding the edit's changes, the added footage from the miniseries showing 'the squid' captures more of the horror aspect of the original work's climax than the original film did, but unfortunately at the expense of being narratively cohesive, as the footage of the film vs. the show are at different times of day and don't quite mesh. That said, it was a delight to see the deleted/extraneous material filmed with the supplemental cast added into the film, though, and it reminded me very much of the end chapter exposition/exploration dumps of the original comic, adding additional depth to this strange alternate version of our past.

Worth checking out if you are a fan of the source!

Edit: Forgot to mention that the few song changes were noticed and appreciated, working better than the original.