(Don't worry, no spoilers here.)

So, my dad's coworker got us tickets to go and see the IMAX premiere of Watchmen last night. As I'm sure you all know, I had extremely high expectations for the film, and frankly expected to hate it.

Well, I didn't.

They stuck extremely close to the source material. Certain scenes looked ripped from the pages, which I appreciated. The fangirl in me was very excited. Certain parts were cut for time constraints (No Tales of the Black Freighter, as I'm sure you've heard, and Bernie and Bernie only have cameos), and they changed the sequence of certain events to compensate for it not being a novel. They also added and changed some things to make the characters a little more sympathetic, which seemed to work out pretty well.

Visually, it was stunning. The costuming, cinematography and special effects were very well done. (fyi, Dr. Manhattan spends about 99% of the movie completely naked. No special glowy effect around the naughty bits like the trailers did. If that makes you uncomfortable, don't know if you should see it.)

The actors were very good. Initially, when casting was done, I wasn't sure about the man cast to be Viedt because visually he didn't look like Ozymandias, but he did a very good job. Rorschach was amazing. The voice was perfect, and he really looked like Kovacs. The Comedian was dead on, and Dr. Manhattan was far less distracting then I thought he would be. (For those who don't know, he voices the hero in Princess Mononoke, also a good movie that you should see)

Mind you, it wasn't perfect. Most of my favorite lines got cut (or at least rearranged and paraphrased), my favorite scene was fairly badly butchered (haha, pun), and I'm sure you've heard that they changed the ending. And, I suppose you should be warned, if extremely graphic violence upsets you, DO NOT see this film. It was pretty gory in parts. And there's a pretty long sex scene. But apart from that, it was very well done.

Also, a minor note, you really should read the book first. Some of it might be confusing without having something to go off of for background information, and over all, the book is better.

Basically, everyone should see it. If the psycho 'It-didn't-stick-close-enough-to-the-original-for-me' girl enjoyed it, you probably will too. =]