In a world, where two movie critics, see the same movie, but form two, very, different, opinions, one review, holds the key…
LaSalle: Director Zack Snyder (“300”) is beginning to look like the best thing to happen to the action movie in this decade.
Scott: I wouldn’t say that Mr. Snyder’s “Watchmen” is a good movie, though it is certainly better than the same director’s “300.”
LaSalle: One could say that the filmmakers’ strategy in “Watchmen” is to try to hold the audience’s attention, not with a great story (the story is just OK), but with great scenes.
Scott: If I had [Dr. Manhattan’s enhanced temporal perspective], the 2 hours 40 minutes of Zack Snyder’s grim and grisly excursion into comic-book mythology might not have felt quite so interminable.
LaSalle: [Snyder] had a strong advantage going into “Watchmen,” an audacious adaptation of the graphic novel of the same name.
Scott: There are times that the filmmakers seem to have used [the original] book less as an inspiration than as a storyboard.
LaSalle: Advisory: This movie contains simulated sex.
Scott: “Watchmen” features this year’s hands-down winner of the bad movie sex award, superhero division: a moment of bliss that takes place on board Nite Owl’s nifty little airship, accompanied by Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah.”
LaSalle: The viewer has been infused with a sense of life on earth as chaotic and hopeless.
Scott: Perhaps there is some pleasure to be found in regressing into this belligerent, adolescent state of mind. But maybe it’s better to grow up.
LaSalle walks away, dejected. Fade to black.
