Weekend Movie Forecast: Watchmen Vs. Frenchmen

There's a fairly wide spectrum of opinion on Watchmen, Zack Snyder's big budget movie adaptation of Alan Moore's post-superhero graphic novel. Fanboys have rhapsodized, film bloggers have sneered, mainstream movie critics have shrugged, eviscerated, and tentatively endorsed. Who to believe? Gothamist, naturally! We squeezed into an absurdly crowded all-media preview at AMC Loews Lincoln Square on Tuesday and walked away underwhelmed. While there are some stunning sequences, and Moore's sturdy narrative structure keeps boredom at bay, the overwrought tone of nihilistic despair, coupled with mostly lackluster performances—Jackie Earle Haley's Rorschach being the brilliant exception—left us feeling oppressed and alienated. Premise: People suck, and the only way they'll learn is through mass annihilation. Twelve dollars, please!

Also, the movie features some of the weirdest soundtrack choices in recent memory, from "The Times They Are A-Changin'" to "Sounds of Silence" to, um, a superhero sex scene set to Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah". (Though a section of Brahms's "Ein Deutsches Requiem" somehow succeeded.) To be fair, the media screening was, irritatingly, not in IMAX, and if you're a fan of the graphic novel, chances are you'll be satisfied with a giant screen viewing at Lincoln Square; that 80-foot high screen has the potential to make even the adequate seem transcendent.