I went to the midnight showing at Century and got there an hour early which I guess wasn't early enough because apparently they let people into the theater long before I got there. As a result I sat down in the bottom few rows. I was in the center so the viewing angle wasn't that bad, I just wasn't at the optimum distance. And of course we got the usual dregs of society as theater mates, it being the debut of the latest Hollywood spectacle and all.
I thought the movie was good. Not great. Not anywhere near as great as the book. How could it be? Being confined to under three hours makes that basically impossible. But even the three hour ten minute director's cut probably won't satisfy either. Even putting aside the elements unique to graphic novels that are impossible to transplant, you still have the problem of the shear length and breadth of story and information vital to the work. Truncated, this story is a shadow of what it once was. A shadow that gets part of the point across in an entertaining way, but a shadow nonetheless. I think it would have done better as a miniseries on HBO or something.
Warning! Thar be spoilers in the comments...
