I spoke to people who had seen the movie who had not read the original, and to those who had (I read it as it was coming out, and was part of the crowd on rec.arts.comics who were studying it in detail from month to month). Consistently, the opinion was that it was beautiful to look at, but did not engage them, resulting in an ‘eh’ reaction overall.

This is where the seemingly unrelated subplots of the book show their value. All the bits with the newsman, the taxi driver and her girlfriend, and the kid reading the comic, plus the Black Freighter comic, all serve to give the reader an emotional link to the story. And, by transference and interaction, we then identify more with Rorschach and come to understand him better, which makes his sacrifice at the end mean more to us.

The movie, an incredible example of bringing a comic to the screen faithful to its art, dropped the ball when it came to giving the viewer and emotional link to the story. A little less action and fighting and a little more work providing that link could have made this a great movie.

I also didn’t need to see so much of doc Manhatten’s big blue “member”. lolol.

at the end of the movie, i was just… i didn’t care what happened, and it was probably because they tried to fit in too much into 2.5 hrs that the viewer didn’t have time to invest into each character.

Though, i’ve heard that if you read the comic first, you’ll really enjoy the movie.