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Okay so it's midnight which means that any kind of embargo on talking about Watchmen has lifted. I got back from a preview screening a few hours ago, and as anyone on my recent message list, twitter feed, facebook news feed, or near vicinity knows, there are two major feelings I have.

1) I loved it. There are portions of the movie when my face was literally slick with tears. Weeping like a blind kid who just saw a Monet for the first time. If you're familiar with the source material, I would only hope you'll feel the same.

2) Holy shit, people are going to hate this movie.

Let me explain. I first read Watchmen on my older brothers bed when it was in monthly issue form. He had to drive to a town across the river (Ouchita, not Kansas) to find a shop that was carrying it. The comic shop policy of the day wasn't exactly friendly towards honest to God melodrama. Watchmen, along with MELTDOWN, were what taught me that these little drawn out story boards were more than adventure stories and excuses for shapely ladies in tight outfits. The portion of the book that explains Doctor Manhattan's origins was the first time I ever understood loss in a dramatic narrative, and the idea of a man moving on from that, especially to face self imposed exile, shocked me. The high arching story lines (many of which are simplified in the movie version) showed that time, location, perspective; hell, narrative attitude altogether, can be warped, as long as it is to serve the story. It doesn't matter who is telling the story, or where they are telling it, or what state they are in when they are telling it, as long as they are serving the story. As such, it's not a book about Dr. Manhattan, or Rorschach, or the Comedian; it's about the world around them falling apart. The movie serves that well, flashing between characters, explaining their reasons to don costumes like you would describe the need for a warm blanket after a house fire; to feel safe in a suddenly cold world.

Now, as for the simplified, or eliminated, story lines. The movie, to me as a multiple time book reader, seemed thinner than I would have liked. But I don't know how you could have a movie that fleshed everything out and could have a decent running time. They kept a lot of things that seemed like side notes in the print version, like the musical cues, so you know they tried their damnedest. I've heard in interviews with the creative team that if something was in the book, then they filmed it. And that's promising. I look forward to the Blu-Ray release with the Black Freighter and the newspaper wars added in. However, it's all forgivable, given the scope of the movie. The ending change is kind of the same thing, if they would have keep the original ending verbatim, as opposed to the same motivation with a different; ahem, device, they would've had to have added at least 30 minutes more to the film.

On a special point, Zach Snyder and his team did a fantastic job of dressing the film. I was worried that people who were unfamiliar with the comic and just wanted to go see a superhero movie would be bored with Watchmen. In the book, there isn't a lot of action. Maybe a page here or there; an alley fight, a jail break. But the movie pumps the violence up to an awakeningly gruesome point. You know the old saying, if you're going to explain someone's origins, you've got to dig a few meat cleavers in a few child rapist's skulls. You know, like you do. And it actually cuts back on some of the sexual violence.

Oh yeah, sex! That brings me to point (2). People are going to hate this movie. If I was to take someone completely foreign to this, they probably would either be confused, or laugh at it. For the haters, there are long diatribes that lose you if you aren't already paying rapt attention. So if the movie doesn't grab you within the first hour, you're in for a long ride. And for the those who would laugh, well shit. I guess I should just say it.

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There's a lot of dick in this. Dr. Manhattan? Dick out. All the time. Four at once, at one point, my friends. Apparently when you loose yourself from the constraints of time and material and space, you become a hanger. As a matter of fact, in the bathroom and lobby afterwards, I caught no less than three conversations between guys that were around the lines of, "Was the book, that... uh... dicky?" And simply? No, it wasn't. But the book was also static images, so they could hide the wiener much easier.

The weird thing is that I didn't even really notice all the dicks on screen, there are just other, you know, story things going on, and the other characters don't seem to care, so you're not really cued to it. But damn if there weren't a lot of grossed out guys in that theater that couldn't take their eyes off them sweet, floppy, Taper snouts. On the Daily Show tonight, it was about all that John Stewart wanted to talk about. And that's what I'm worried is going to get talked about, instead of the coverage it deserves. Just dick talk, then no discussion of the movie, eventually killing an great piece of cinema because of it's unabashed display of wang.

No matter what, there are changes from the original story, and purists are going to be bugged. You know what it honestly reminded me of? Dune, by Frank Herbert, via David Lynch. That was a huge story that fans said couldn't be made, and it was confusing as hell to younger kids (like me) that got hold of it. But it got made, and it was unforgetable. Watchmen is at least at that level of quality, and timeless (it's already had 20 years to age) to boot. I wish it the best of luck.