So, I saw Watchmen last night at midnight!

The official review is up at Tor.com.

Unofficial, spoiler-riddled thoughts below. Keep in mind I have been awake for, uh, a lot of hours, so not everything is here. I’ll think of more.

Fun fact: there was a guy in my theatre balcony who wore a knit cap with a brim and talked a lot of shit with his friends, and a guy directly in front of me who called Zack Snyder “Brechtian” in a tone that indicated he clearly pulled a descriptor out of his ass, and then went on to talk about 300 as a narrative of malehood or something. All I’m saying is, it’s lucky for them I don’t have the magical ability to make people’s heads explode.

I’m also saying that, if you wear a knit cap with a little brim, you are just asking for someone to slap you behind your head. You can’t see who did it! you have a little blinder on top!

Anyway, whatever, I saw the movie.

Things I loved:

- Patrick Wilson, who just nailed Dan Dreiberg – noble and sad, optimistic yet not an idiot.

- Jeffrey Dean Morgan, who just nailed The Comedian – vicious and ruthless and horrified.

- Matthew Goode, who did really well as Adrian – he was a little boyish-looking for the part, but he pulled the sociopath card when it counted, and then it all worked. Also, dude can work out a fight scene!

- Jackie Earl Haley, who was born to be Rorschach – it was just chilling. I couldn’t get enough, which is saying something, because in the comic book I felt we were juuust about on our Rorschach quota a couple of times.

- Billy Crudup, whose casting I doubted, knocked it out of the park. His character was one of the most affecting, which took me totally by surprise. I may hate your nasty face, Crudup, but you can act.

- Everyone has a slightly different fighting style; not really obvious, but it’s there.

- The moment when Dan goes to warn Adrian, and Adrian’s in the middle of a press conference, and Dan picks up Adrian’s action figure and wags it at him like, “You geek,” and Adrian pulls this little face. Moments like that were my favorite; the little between-the-cracks bits that fleshed out the parts of their pasts we never see.

- You felt like Dan and Rorschach really were friends. It was natural and understated; when they get to Antarctica, Dan is slapping on his winter gear, and he frowns at Rorschach and says, “You need more than that,” like he’s Rorschach’s older brother. I dunno, I loved it.

- The first coitus-nothinghappeningus between Dan and Laurie; it was so fumbling and awkward and intimate and nervous and weirdly relaxed. Perfect.

- I am coming around on the changes made to the ending. I was never violently against them; I’m just wondering if that was A way, or the BEST way. Not that it matters; what are they going to do, reshoot?

Things I did not love:

- The second sex scene. If it was a joke, it was bad. If it was meant to be serious, it is double bad. If Zack Snyder just wanted to get Malin Ackerman topless, triple bad. The music makes it quadruple bad, and the jet of fire makes it QUINTUPLE BAD. That is a lot of bad for a one-minute scene.

- Speaking about the jet of fire, Laurie is really surprised that the button with fire on it shoots fire? Does she have a concussion?

- Speaking of Laurie, she was bad enough to begin with without you taking away the omnipresent guards as a reason she felt inspected all the time. Instead it just looks like she throws a snit fit and leaves.

- Speaking of snit fit, may I throw one about Malin Ackerman? Where did you find her, Boise community theatre outreach? Good lord, she blows.

- Speaking of outreach, can we do some kind of intervention on your music director? What the hell was that Hit Parade in the first 90 minutes? It’s the eighties. WE KNOW.

- Speaking of hits, can I hit whoever made Nite Owl II say, “What happened to the American Dream?!” in his best Hayden Christiansen voice? What the hell is that shit? People cracked up, and by people, I man, everyone who was near me, and also me.

- I’m fine with Dan witnessing Rorschach getting detonated, but then he and Laurie leave in the biggest, diva-est huff I have ever seen, and I worked in event planning. I mean, can they do something a little more damning than tossing Blue Steel over their shoulders as they leave?

- Sally Jupiter. She had enough problems before, you know? Yeesh.

- They don’t have the scene where Adrian asks for absolution and John tells Adrian nothing lasts forever. I don’t want to nitpick, and I’m fine with most of the stuff they changed, but that feels like a big whiffle ball to me. Later, Laurie says of the new peace, “I feel like John would say that nothing lasts forever,” and I was like, “Good feeling! Because he did! In that scene he was in that has MAGICALLY DISAPPEARED.”

- ETA: The dude who played Nixon. Did he wander in off the street? My grandmother can do a better Nixon.

There was a movie man,
Who had a movie plan,
And adapted a comic quite florid.
When it was good,
It was very good indeed,
But when it was bad it was horrid.

About halfway through Zack Snyder’s Watchmen, the everyman ex-superhero Dan Dreiberg and the restless superwoman-legacy Laurie Jupiter have a fumbling, awkward attempt at sex. It’s painfully real, and from the reflection of his glasses to the squeaky, sagging couch, it brings the scene in the comic to life and highlights the tenuous connection between two lonely people at a dead end in their lives.

Less than twenty minutes later, as Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” blares obnoxiously over the soundtrack, Dan and Laurie engage in a bout of tantric sex for so long that even the hysterical laughter of the audience eventually gave way to embarrassed silence as the two rode each other like a carnival kiddie coaster. Whether it was meant as homage to the comic, an arousing love scene, or an ironic joke, the scene did nothing but make us wish the film would burn through.

Sitting through the full length of Watchmen means following the film through a series of similar peaks and valleys; a more uneven movie I have rarely seen, with moments of lyricism standing alongside moments so overwrought or badly managed that the theatre fills with derisive laughter.

Strangely, there is no point in which Snyder may either take full blame or rest on his laurels; every element of the film is hit or miss. The largely-stellar casting (Jackie Earle Haley, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Billy Crudup, Matthew Goode, Patrick Wilson) suffers from a talent suck (Malin Ackerman) who manages to make anyone in a scene with her look like an Our Town understudy. The film-school-freshman music direction (minus the unsubtle but appropriate “The Times They Are a-Changin’” over the opening montage) fobs one classic-rock hit after another with such relentlessness that by the time the scoring appears like a guest late to the party, we’ve wasted an hour gritting our teeth anticipating the next onslaught of classic rock.

Dear Mr. Snyder; we know it’s 1985—playing “99 Luftballons” is not necessary. Ever.

The script, adapted in good faith from Alan Moore’s graphic novel, sinks or swims entirely on the shoulders of the actors in the frame. Snyder, who seems far less interested in characters than in framing his slo-mo just so, leaves it up to the actors to do as they will. The better actors manage to work between the lines, adding deft moments of characterization that strengthen the implied relationships between old friends and enemies. Malin Ackerman, on the other hand, delivers her lines with all the flair of dry seaweed. Pity the man stuck in a frame beside her.

Visually, the film is stunning; whatever his flaws, Snyder knows how to compose a shot. As anyone who has seen 300 could comfortably suspect, fight scenes are polished and either lightning-fast or underwater-slow, and once or twice the action rises to moments of true elation and suspense, even for those who know the outcome.

There are small but significant plot changes, unavoidable in any adaptation, that will upset purists. While the third act will manage to surprise casual and hardcore fans alike, it’s the smaller, less sweeping changes that chip away at the movie’s tone, and do it the largest disservice. In faithfully bringing the comic panels to life, Snyder sometimes neglects the atmosphere and tone that elevated Moore’s underbelly superheroes into anti-archetypes; luckily, comic books fans are used to not getting their cake and eating it, too.

Verdict: Watchmen is recommended for those who don’t mind wildly varying quality; bring your own pearls to clutch.

[This piece originally appeared on Tor.com.]