Watchmen
Warner Bros. Pictures | Release Date: March 6, 2009 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
56
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 39 Critic Reviews
Positive:
19
Mixed:
14
Negative:
6
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
60
Los Angeles TimesKenneth Turan
Snyder stands revealed here as more of a beginner than a visionary in his uncertain approach to making an on-screen world come alive. Read full review
60
New York Daily NewsJoe Neumaier
The most pleasant surprise in the movie adaptation of "Watchmen" is the pop-art fusion set off by placing superheroes in a "real" world. The film's biggest challenge – and accomplishment – was making that plausible. Read full review
50
VarietyJustin Chang
The movie is ultimately undone by its own reverence; there's simply no room for these characters and stories to breathe of their own accord, and even the most fastidiously replicated scenes can feel glib and truncated. Read full review
50
Village VoiceJ. Hoberman
Watchmen is neither desecratory disaster nor total triumph. In filming David Hayter and Alex Tse's adaptation of the most ambitious superhero comic book ever written, director Zack Snyder has managed to address the cult while pandering to the masses. Read full review
50
USA TodayClaudia Puig
In the canon of comic-book movies, it's not as campy bad as the "Batman" starring George Clooney, but nowhere near the caliber of the Spider-Man movies or "The Dark Knight." It may have more style, but it's only a jot more entertaining than "Catwoman." Read full review
50
Washington PostPhilip Kennicott
Watchmen is a bore. Sad to say, after a wait of more than two decades, the much-anticipated adaptation of the world's most celebrated graphic novel is long, dull and subject to what might be called the "Lord of the Rings" problem: It sinks under the weight of its reverence for the original. Read full review
50
SlateDana Stevens
Watchmen fans wondering whether their graphic novel has been ruined will be thrilled to see its key scenes reproduced with storyboardlike fidelity, but those who've never read it will be unlikely to understand what the big deal was in the first place. Read full review
50
Austin ChronicleMarc Savlov
Watchmen is worth seeing, fan or no, for Haley's squirmy presence alone, and all the other characters are also well-served. Read full review
50
Film ThreatPete Vonder Haar
Watchmen is indeed gorgeous, with Gibbons' original work reproduced and – in some cases – improved upon by detailed F/X, but even at a healthy two hours and 41 minutes the story feels truncated. Even abrupt. Read full review
42
Christian Science MonitorPeter Rainer
Although the film's visuals are a cut above, say, "Sin City," another serioso graphic novel-turned-movie, it has the same mood: a film-noir-ish soddenness punctuated by megaviolence. Watchmen is the anti-"Incredibles." Read full review
40
NewsweekDevin Gordon
Speaking as an admirer, but not an apostle, of the graphic novel, I thought the Watchmen movie was confusing, maddeningly inconsistent and fighting a long, losing battle to establish an identity of its own. Read full review
40
NPRBob Mondello
The director recycles some of the better effects from his gladiator epic "300"...and he's being so faithful to the work of comics artist Dave Gibbons that he might as well have used the graphic novel's illustrations as a storyboard. Read full review
40
Chicago ReaderNoah Berlatsky
Director Zack Snyder races through the story, faithfully reproducing this bit of dialogue from Moore and that bit of imagery from Gibbons but never pausing to develop a vision of his own. The result is oddly hollow and disjointed; the actors moving stiffly from one overdetermined tableau to another. Read full review
40
The New York TimesA.O. Scott
As it is, the film is more curiosity than provocation, an artifact of a faded world brought to zombie half-life by the cinematic technology of the present. Read full review
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