I caught Watchmen last night. Overall I found it thought-provoking, graphic and explicit beyond my comfort zone, quiet but emphatic in its message, and well written and played. It’s a bitter pill to swallow, but it’s hard to argue with the film’s central message: there is no world where everyone just makes the right decision. Sometimes you have to shoot a puppy so a bus full of schoolkids can live. This is the story of the people willing to shoot the puppy. If you can handle the very stark worldview and graphic violence, it’s well worth checking out. However, do leave the kids at home.

What I Liked

Rorschach. This pissed-off red-headed bastard (literally) gives voice to the impulse inside all of us that screams out “it isn’t fair” and “they had it coming.” My favorite line: “Men Go To Jail. Dogs Get Put Down!” It resonated instantly; countless headlines raced through my brain of repeat offenders who were given a second chance to rape and murder because of a system that naïvely mistakes idiocy for compassion. The graphic execution that came after was too much for me to watch, but the stark reality of what justice actually means hit home harder than that meat cleaver. Justice is not cruel or kind. And someone has to administer it. In this function, Rorschach makes Batman look like a prancing pansy. His understanding of truth and fairness is even more black and white than his mask, and his will to sustain it is even more frightening than his creative methods of bad guy disposal.

Silk Spectre’s Hair. I want to know what product that girl is using because her hair can withstand everything: teleportation, infernos, street fights, travel to Mars, clothing with zippers galore, and wild sex in a hovercraft.

The Visuals. I was worried it would just be a mashup of Sin City’s color palate with 300‘s camera work, but I was pleased. The opening fight scene, brutal and poetic, let me know a couple of things: One, this movie was going to be gorgeous. Two, it was going to take its sweet time.

The Sex Stuff:

Naked Guys. Americans are so funny. They don’t freak out at all over horrific violence but show a little nudity, even non-sexual nudity, especially male nudity, and they go into a giggle fit. “Giant blue penis nonstop” is what I’ve been hearing for weeks. The nonchalant way that they handled Dr. Manhattan’s lack of interest in clothing was fine. It really told the audience: “Yeah, he’s naked. Big deal. Get over it.” It was much less distracting than the idiotic digital figleaves in Beowulf, which actually brought attention to the guy’s junk than simply treating it as just another body part.

Post-Gender Attitude. Also refreshing was to finally see a movie that exhibited no trace of sexism in its depiction of the human body. A beef that feminists have had with Hollywood for years is the way the male body is tastefully concealed while camera angles show every inch of female skin and presuppose a dominant, exploitative male viewer. Oh, and for once there’s a movie with more naked men than women, but even this is incidental. There is sex but no sexism; the images are explicit but send a clear message against unhealthy sexuality based on selfish desire. Sex for the wrong reasons — rape, even affection given out of pity — are condemned.

The Funny Sex Scene. I liked Nite Owl’s total babbling deer-in-the-headlights routine when Silk Spectre puts the moves on him. And I laughed out loud when he spluttered “Yeah if you could . . . move a little . . . yeah.” We’ve all been there; smooching isn’t like in the movies. There are awkward logistics: noses and elbows and arms going dead and finding yourself still fully clothed on the couch, slightly red-faced and feeling awkward, but thrilled to be there. It was refreshing to see a realistic “sex” scene, because often what is most sexy involves no sex at all.

What I Hated

Carla Gugino’s Old Makeup Looked Like a Rubber Mask. Come on. This is friggin’ Hollywood. Get some people who know how to do aging makeup properly.

Sensationalistic Gore. Some scenes (Like Silk Spectre and Nite Owl pounding the crap out of hoods while out on a date) were a lot of rock-’em sock-’em fun. But the movie didn’t need to get all Hannibal Lecter here and there. The scenes where gruesome violence was implied were better than the ones where it was shoved in my face. It’s much more satisfying to know that an evil person got what was coming to them rather than to witness it.

The Bad Guy. Ozymandias was underdeveloped and boring. And has a terrible name. I could have done a little less with Dr. Manhattan’s snail-paced contemplation of his navel (how come having godlike powers and being enormous makes you so slow?) and a little more with development of the mastermind of the plot. He seemed cool, but I didn’t get to know him well enough to be shocked or to even care that it was — gasp — one of the Watchmen betraying his fellows. Yawn.

Luke, I Am Your Father. Speaking of tired plot devices . . . you’d think a film that goes to painstaking lengths to deconstruct everything that we believe about right and wrong would take a similar attitude toward the relative importance of who Laurie’s mom was impregnated by. If a genetic roll of the dice is what persuaded Dr. Manhattan to value human life, maybe the galaxy is better off without him.

The Two Jackasses Who Brought Their Three Children With Them. What kind of people bring three children, including a screaming toddler, to a show like Watchmen? Oh wait, I know. Inconsiderate morons who are too lazy to pay for condoms and babysitters.

I love the movies. But it’s getting impossible for me to go. During the day it’s jackass teenagers texting each other, and at night it’s mouth breathers who can’t keep their DNA out of the gene pool. Or out of the theater. I keep wondering when certain people will realize that if you can’t afford a babysitter, you need to stick with Netflix. Don’t want your social agenda to be hampered? Don’t have kids.

It’s legal for parents to bring their spawn with them to R-rated films — parents in this country are free to mess up their kids as much as they like, provided they are clean, fed, educated, and don’t steal anybody’s stuff. In theory this freedom allows parents to choose to do the right thing, and most do. For better and for worse, our laws can’t protect you from getting annoyed by that handful of incompetent losers. That’s why I wish the movie biz would self-regulate. More liberal use of the NC-17 rating would be great. Not to protect children from smut and violence — to protect my enjoyment of smut and violence from being wrecked by screaming kids. (Okay, and to protect kids. Win-Win.)

I can’t imagine it’s good business for a theater to piss off the majority of its patrons by allowing toddlers into shows. We can’t legislate against bad parenting; unfortunately there will always be morons who expose their children to damaging content. But businesses can protect the rest of us from having our fun ruined by these losers. Maybe getting kicked out of a theater to the sound of raucous applause could be what it took for a bad parent to answer the clue phone and get them to ruin their child’s innocence in the privacy of their own home. All I know is if I could find a theater that only allowed kids under five to the first show of the day (for any non-G rated film) and booted any irresponsible parents after that, I’d give them my undying loyalty forever.

Oh wait. There was a movie review in here somewhere . . .