2009 / Zack Snyder > Respectably ambitious, Watchmen is an epic on a small scale: It has no big name movie stars, nor does it field superheroes of mainstream lore. There are two things it does very, very well: The cinematography is stunning with vibrant colors and imaginative awareness, and the violence is gruesome, righteously effective with exacting choreography. Then there are things that just don’t seem to fit: The music is a mess. No film should ever use Simon & Garfunkel’s “The Sounds of Silence.” It reeks of empty ambition since it’s already been used nearly perfectly in The Graduate. A lot of the other, more well-known tracks also seem forced (“99 Luft Balloons?” Really?). This, ironically, actually detracts from the mood the film tries to set. But let’s talk adaptation: Faithfulness is good and all, but a comic is a different medium. Whatever you think of Alan Moore, he had it right in saying that the reader has time to reflect back on what he’s just read, maybe even doubleback to check facts and link a character to his speech bubbles. But a film of this supposed gravity almost becomes a joke in its obtuse seriousness without being given the time to digest. The awkward pacing and plot jumps that leave us filling in gaps with a considerable level of assumptions also don’t help. The graphic novel walked a very thin line between the pretentious and the cautionary, and unfortunately Snyder may have fallen on the wrong side of those tracks.