Just the movie, I'll review the DVD itself in the next post.
I'll try not to include any spoilers.
The added scenes definitely help the movie, with maybe the exception of the last Hollis Mason scene. It's a great scene, but wasn't necessary and didn't really add to the movie.
Places where the theatrical release failed are the same places the director's cut failed.
It still feels hurried at the end.
Some of the acting is horribly cardboard. Malin Akerman was ridiculous, Dr. Manhattan shows more emotion - seriously. Matthew Goode is never comfortable as Ozymandias. It looks particularly bad because the other actors are doing good work. Patrick Wilson delivered a phenomenal understated performance, exactly what the part needed. Billy Crudup does a good job with Dr. Manhattan (even if his part doesn't feel as good as the other leads). The two jokers in this deck (Haley as Rorschach and Morgan as Comedian) stand out in the script and performance, with Haley trumping.
The dumbing down effect that occurs in American movies, and is promptly compounded with American comic book adaptations, is present here. Carla Gugino will never look 60 years old. She won't look 60 when she's 60. She won't look 60 when she's 70. It would have confused no one if an ACTUALLY 60 YEAR OLD WOMAN played the mother and Carla did the flashbacks. But apparently the audience isn't smart enough to figure that out. There's points where the script gets "comic book corny", plus the "this movie needs to be a big blockbuster" requirements. But you know that going in, which breaks your fall some.
There's surprisingly little they didn't film from the book, with notable exception being the newspaperman and the kid reading the comic. And the detectives' angle is never brought up. Oh, and the black freighter comic stuff (which they made a motion comic out of).
Bottom line - it's very difficult to make subversive material mainstream. When it works it's Fight Club (which made NO money in theatres). When it fails it's everything that looks like it's trying to be Fight Club (too many films to list). And Watchmen if VERY subversive, on top of being unfilmable for other reasons.
That being said, Snyder and co. made as good of a movie as one probably could, given their circumstances. So while the material would have been much more successful as a tv mini series, it doesn't fail as a movie. If anything, it makes you want to read the comic, which I feel is what the movie should do.


"Your current frequencies of understanding outweigh that which has been given for you to understand." Saul Williams