Watchmen

It plays better than it reviews — the watch lands harder than the write-ups suggest.

• “Director Zack Snyder's cerebral, scintillating follow-up to "300" seems, to even a weary filmgoer's eye, as fresh and magnificent in sound and vision as "2001" must have seemed in 1968, yet in its eagerness to argue with itself, it resembles "A Clockwork Orange."”

  Kyle Smith, New York Post · 100

• “The whole thing works, especially for the non-comic audience. Plus, the music is perfect, especially the opening montage set to Bob Dylan's, "The Times They Are a-Changin."”

  Patrick Parker, Premiere · 100

• “It's a compelling visceral film -- sound, images and characters combined into a decidedly odd visual experience that evokes the feel of a graphic novel. It seems charged from within by its power as a fable; we sense it’s not interested in a plot so much as with the dilemma of functioning in a world losing hope.”

  Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times · 100

• “Part conscious and part unconscious, Watchmen tells us of a world without hope and then makes us wonder if we're already living in it.”

  Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle · 100

• “A terrific comic-book movie, the most completely satisfying and unsettling one I've ever seen.”

  Andrew O'Hehir, Salon · 100