Okay, buckle up cause this is a long one, I finally watched Watchmen 2009 (theatrical release) and here are the things I liked and didn't like as someone who's never read the comics (but has watched the animated Chapter I and Chapter II movies beforehand):
Patrick Wilson, Jackie Earle Haley (!!), Jeffrey Dean Morgan (!), Malin Akerman, Billy Crudup, all fantastic performances. Really great acting.
Awesome CGI all the way through, even with Dr. Manhattan's weird uncanny mouth
Good balance between humor and sobriety
The costuming was MOSTLY* really fantastic. I liked the updates they did to Nite Owl's outfit, he looked really cool but still kinda dorky/owly. Rorschach was literally like peeled right from the comics, from what I've seen. Dr. Manhattan looked really cool even with all the CGI.
I didn't realize this until reading the Wikipedia page, but I enjoyed Matthew Goode's decision to give Adrian Veidt a heavier German accent in private. That's sort of a retroactive like
I liked that Nite Owl, who was ostensibly a lot more on the straight and narrow than guys like Rorschach and the Comedian, still seemed to not know what to do, or simply feel like he couldn't stop it when they would be Terrible, I thought that was interesting
The scene where one of Big Figure's goons had to cut off the other's arms was more understandable and less stupid than in the animated film.
Also Rorschach was kinda hot in that scene sorry
The inclusion of Rorschach, Dr. Manhattan, and Laurie/Silk Spectre II's backstories
Dan's booty. I see now where those 25 pounds that Patrick Wilson put on went.
Adrian's plan to frame Dr. Manhattan. That made actually a liiiittle more sense than his Creature plan, less hoops to jump through, and it was also like SO much more evil lmao.
Adrian's genetically modified pet lynx. Glad she made it in.
REALLY great child casting for all the young versions of the characters.
Hair and makeup was a biiiiit rough throughout. Adrian's wig was downright distracting. The aging makeup was all over the place from character to character (esp The Comedian, Silk Spectre 1, and uhhhh Dr. Manhattan's ex girlfriend, I can't remember her name😬). Even Rorschach's freckles were a little weird and unnatural. The Nixon prosthetics were distracting, too. Laurie's fuckass bangs. Her performance outshined her hair but I just was not a fan sorry.
The scene where Rorschach is actually doing the Rorschach test was done better in the Watchmen Chapter II animated film, and I didn't think they had any reason to not do it a similar way in the live action version. I was hoping that the inkblots would like morph into the memories they were evoking. It's a small nitpicky thing but it felt like an unnecessary miss
*The costumes. So I said I liked some of them. I had some MAJOR gripes with others. WHY CALL HER. SILK SPECTRE. IF SHES NOT GONNA WEAR. ANY SILK!!!!!!! SHES NOT LATEX SPECTRE! SILICONE SPECTRE!! SHE'S SILK SPECTRE!!!! GIVE HER A REASON TO BE CALLED THAT!!! Ozymandias!! Where's the bold purple and yellow! I liked the way his suit was designed but the colors were SO boring! He's the smartest man in the world but he's also tacky as hell! That's funny! The only part of his costume that touched on that was that it had nips, that was pretty funny. But even side roles like Big Figure were kinda lacking. His stark white hair and little red bandana just give him a little bit more oomph as a character.
Some of the acting was comic book-y in a good way (Rorschach) and others were comic booky in a bad way. I don't wanna be mean or badmouth any actors but some of the performances felt like...not very believable? I think that Zack Snyder is better at directing action than he is directing people, and that sort of showed through in some places. Based on how Ive heard the actors talk about their characters, any good acting seems to be purely because of the actors themselves, not because of how they were directed.
I wished a little more of Adrian Veidt's backstory had been included. Maybe it's in the directors cut or ultimate cut, idk. But I probably would've only enjoyed it if he had a better wig.
In the animated film, the scene where Dan isn't able to get it up was kind of amusing, but not in a mean way. In the live action, the scene was actually a bit more realistic, which I appreciated, but it lost some of that humor. That's a nitpick tho.
While I did like Adrian's different plan, I felt a little bit cheated out of seeing a Creature. I hadnt realized it until I was denied it, but I guess I had started the movie hoping to see a Creature, so I was a little sad when there wasn't one.
Hollis Mason's murder was probably in the director's cut, but I don't think it should've been cut from the theatrical release.
I missed the moment where the Newsstand guy realizes he has the same name as the kid that's always reading the curse of the black freighter comic by his stand. Small nitpick but I liked that moment. I guess it's kind of dependent on the whole black freighter thing, though, and I'm actually kinda glad they left that out of the movie.
I liked the Dr. Manhattan and Laurie scene, where he realized why the earth is worth trying to save, better in the animated film. That said, I thought Billy Crudup's performance was fantastic all the way through.
I wished that the circulatory system was walking through the kitchen instead of by the perimeter fence.
Laurie intentionally hitting the fire button on Archie instead of hitting it by accident was stupid.
There's a moment after Comedian's attempt upon Silk Spectre 1 where she kinda gives this look like "oooh that was rough but I kinda liked it" which I hated, I thought the whole point was that she, over time following the incident, grew attracted enough to the Comedian in order to actually sleep with him, not that she was kinda into him (or, God forbid, his violence) from the start.
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