You know, Watchmen is actually a pretty good crap movie, in terms of being, er, watchable. It is very beautifully if preposterously shot -- as ought to be the case for a movie based on a comic book. The plot is preposterous, the dialogue absurd, but then, so? It's no dumber than say Star Wars (Mach I) in its cheesy glory.
I'm not sure at what point superhero movies about superhero stories about superhero stories meant to be Serious Takes on Superhero Stories became superhero stories you can't just watch as superhero stories, but I'm just addled enough to find Watchmen watchable. Of course I'm watching Watchmen as a chaser as I grade final comp papers, so as far as I'm concerned it might as well be Snicker-Bar Schapps.
In retrospect it's very peculiar that We Expect people who make films about guys who run around in their underwear to have Profound Statements about Our Lives Today. You see this all the time with the fucking Batman films.
This is not to say that there are not sophisticated things to say about either Watchmen or the Batman crap. It is just to say that there is some vague general cultural notion extant that superhero movies can be Great Art, and so you should treat superhero movies as Great Art. But, you know, that's crap.
MAS. The Dr Manhattan segment of Watchmen is utterly fun; hell, the whole damn thing is set to diamond commercial music. Fuckin' great.
OH. I like very much in this film how when the authorities catch a loon running around calling himself Rorschach, who wears a mask that looks like a Rorschach test while he beats up strangers, the first thing they do is find a criminal psychologist to give the guy a Rorscharch test.