For the non-latin scholars, taken from Juvenal, the quote is roughly translated to mean, “Who watches the Watchmen?” an oft mentioned mentioned quote in the Watchmen trade/movie. I did this past Sunday and came away with a slight sinking feeling. Don’t get me wrong, the movie was solid; the visuals were amazing; acting, for the most part, was good; action scenes, great; plot, good and mainly true to the movie. But… it just wasn’t good enough for me.

Spoiler alert for those who’ve not read the trade/watched the motion comic yet. For those who’ve not read it, a quick summary of the trade is that it follows middle aged has been superheroes in a hunt to find an unknown killer killing off superheroes for seemingly no reason. I’ll try not to reveal so much for those who’ve not watched the movie yet. Condensing a 12 issue arc into a mere 2:45 hr movie that will satisfy both mainstream audiences and hardcore fans of the trade was quite the task. Mainstreamers, coming in expecting your typical flying, high jumping, cheesy save the girl action will be letdown in leaps and bounds. Though Watchmen will be classified by many as a “superhero movie”, it’s more of a movie that happens to have superhero-like figures in it. You’ll not see any cutesy save scenes of teenage angst or someone rekindling a long gone relationship. People actually die in this movie, pretty gory deaths, may I add. There’s your excessive nudity that will have you wondering who was the poor sap that got stuck animating that blue, glowing man-thing that is attached to a bald Data-like naked man and some pretty strong political and philosophical themes going on.

Beginning, with well… the beginning, which was a mix of classic music that retold the past events leading all the way up to the “current” in the Watchmen universe. The beginning was extremely well done and summarized the events pretty well, though I’d have to admit, non-readers of the trade will most likely be confused as there is no text nor is there a narrator, just scenes mixed in with Bob Dylan and Jimi Hendrix. Although the beginning music really messes well with the intro, sadly the music for the rest of the film (other than the organ music from the second trailer) was quite disappointing. I know the director was probably trying to get music to fit the times, but it just didn’t work out most of the time. The music felt really out of place in many of the scenes, throwing off the whatever vibe was going on in the movie.

The next scene opened with the fight between the Comedian and his then unknown killer, which I’d have to say was one of the best fight scenes I’ve seen in a movie in a while. Although I knew exactly what was going to happen, it left me guessing what was going to happen though the “costume” of the mask killer was outlined in such a way that you kinda knew who he was if you had stay passed the hour mark of the movie. It also a mostly logical retelling of how the fight may have went down minus a particularly irksome item that you Watchmen readers will mostly like notice.

The next hour and a half comprised mainly of the retelling of the Comedian’s past and his unlawful acts that lead to his untimely death. This is where I started getting let down by the movie. The casting of the movie was pretty spot on in my opinion, look-wise anyway. All the characters looked like their counterparts to pretty much a T with some compromising changes. But what had me scratching my head was the acting of the Comedian, it just wasn’t… good. He under acted many of the scenes. Maybe it’s because I expected a certain type of reaction, which has been in grained in my memory since the first time I picked up the book, but he just could have done a better job of expressing emotion. the actor who played the Comedian made it seem like he was just reading off the script he read a few minutes beforehand. The acting just could have been better, but was a momental letdown.

On the other hand, Rorscach was a perfect casting, he not only looked the part but acted like I had imagined he would’ve acted. He was the crazy and conspiracy theorist when he should have been, his mannerisms were believable,  his sense of justice and matter of speaking were spot on. He definitely wasn’t afraid to be Rorschach, though I definitely would be if I met him. My favorite scene was in the famous prison cafeteria scene where he dosed a fellow prison mate with boiling hot oil, then shouts out, “None of you understand. I’m not locked up in here with you. You’re locked up in here with me.” Amazing, I could watch that scene over and over again and would not get old of it. Though what was missing was the retelling of Rorscach’s origin, which was a gross oversight of the director. He was the character that made the movie stand out; he was the most interesting, most intriguing character and they just left out how he became Rorschach.It was most likely left out in favor of the retelling of the naked super powered blue guy origin. I’m hoping it was just cut because of time, since I hear the movie was cut down from nearly 4 hours to under 3 to be able to get the masses to not leave.

Generally, the movie was a great retelling of the first 5 chapters of the trade and then quickens up after the 2 hour mark to come to a very different ending than what is in the trade. Philosophical-wise, the ending was very similar, but what had me was the blame being turned around and the changing ultimatums in the movie. There was also a very logical sequence change in the movie of the famous Dreiberg/Laurie sex scene, essentially it was moved back in favor of a more “friendly” scene to Rorschach that is.

Watching the movie in IMAX was definitely pretty awesome, but probably not worth it, since I don’t believe any of the film was filmed using IMAX cameras. So if you think you’ll be missing a lot since there are no IMAX theaters in your area, you’ll probably not be missing much. Be warned there is a fair amount of both male and female nudity as well as pretty gruesome deaths and fight scenes, which added a grittiness to the film. The comic with a comic “Tales of the Black Freighter” were unsurprisingly absent, as the animated version will be coming in separately, as well as the book within a book chapters of “Under The Hood”. I honestly can’t wait to buy the spliced in uncut DVD release when it comes out and sit and watch the marathon of a flick.

So did I like the movie? Yes, I did. Would I watch it again? Yes.

Official T-Mobile G1 website

• Engadget
• Gizmodo
• Boy Genius Report
  
• jkOnTheRun
• Lifehacker (Not really a full review but a great software overview)
• CrunchGear
• NYTimes
• Yahoo Tech News
• Seattle Times and true review here
• eWeek
• Star Tribune
• Walt Mossberg
• PC World
• CNet
• BusinessWeek
• PC Mag
• PC Advisor
• First G1 User Review
• Android Community
• MobileBurn
• SlashGear
• gigOM

Here is a quick rundown of the specs:

• 2.8″ 320 x 240 TFT touchscreen
• 400 MHz 32bit Qualcomm MSM7200 processor
• Full QWERTY slide out keyboard
• 3.1 MP camera
• 128 MB RAM
• 256 MB ROM
• Quad Band GSM, Triband UMTS/HSDPA (850, 1900, 2100) 3G baby
• 802.11g WiFi compatible
• Bluetooth 2.0 A2DP
• Support for microSDHC cards up to 32 GB
• GPS

For more detailed information visit the pdadb info page for the Tilt here.

Hardware:
As hardware goes, this thing has everything you could ever want from a phone. A full keyboard for typing out long emails or lengthy SMS conversations as well as a large touchscreen. A real GPS chip for use with any maps application. A decent amount of space for those small applications. A quick processor. A decent camera with video recording capabilities. A 802.11g radio as well as triband HSDPA and bluetooth. It has everything. Beware, this thing is a brick and pretty heavy compared to your average phone. It also has a nice rubberized backing as well. It’s only port is a mini-USB port for all your needs, charging headphones and such, but for the latter you’d need to purchase an adapter or two and forget about dual charger/listening to music with a standard 3.5 mm without the purchase of another adapter.

Keyboard:
The keyboard is probably one of the best I’ve ever used on a mobile phone, every key feels individual and separate with full QWERTY support, the only thing this is missing is a CTRL and ALT key that will be featured in the upcoming HTC Raphael. GPS takes a few minutes to get a fix, but when it does, it works pretty well with Google Maps, as well as TomTom Mobile Navigator software. Data speeds are fast when in a 3G or HSDPA area, which luckily I am living in two cities.

Software:
The Tilt comes preloaded with a customized Windows Mobile 6.0 for AT&T subscribers. It comes loaded with much bloatware and trial ware. You’ll take some time sifting through which programs are actually usable or not.

Contacts:
Contacts are manage in the usable and the slightly ugly Pocket Outlook. It is pretty straight forward and you can add as much information about a person as if you were using Outlook’s desktop cousin.

SMS:
SMS are done in the similar fashion to emails, which is a great thing. While sending a message to one of your contacts, it will suggest individuals in your contact list. Sending to multiple people is done by simply adding a semi-colon and that individual’s name. If you are in the mood for something a tad better looking, I suggest the wonderfully free PocketCM. Download it here. It will also create a much improved contact interface as well, the only thing with PocketCM is that it still doesn’t support SIM cards.

Web Browsing:
Web browsing in Pocket IE quite frankly sucks. If you don’t ever want to see the web broken and small, then stay away from Pocket IE and use one of the alternatives, such as Opera Mobile (not free, but comes with a 30-day trial), Opera Mini (Free) or sign up for SkyFire beta. Pocket IE is terrible, it is hard for it to render websites that don’t have a mobile interface. Opera Mini, a java midlet, does this beautifully. It is a mainstay in my arsenal. Download it here.

Camera:
The camera is better than your average cellphone cam and can record video. Storage options are the phone’s internal memory or a microSD card.

Navigation:
After using the free trial of TeleNav and not wanting to pay the monthly fee for something that was built to be free and open, you’ll find Google Maps or Live Search from Microsoft. Both are great, I prefer Google maps myself, but Live Search is on par if not better in some areas. The latest version of Google Maps supports My Location, by giving you a general location of where you are, which is never accurate, but it comes in handy if you don’t want to drain your battery by turning on your GPS radio. For the people who are having trouble with their GPS radio, download GPS test here. I know it sounds silly, but it turns on the GPS module and helps to get a fix. Point your web browser here for Google Maps and here for Live Search.

Call Quality:
I’ve been extremely unsatisfied with AT&T and call quality. I’ve had to say more “What?”, making it appear as if I was deaf to the person on the other end. But this was to be expecting when I was taking into consideration other wireless carriers. GSM as a technology is kinda weak, CDMA has much better quality voice and data-wise. While on Sprint I could hear someone crystal clear, but on AT&T everything sounds muffled as if the other person was speaking through a plastic bag. I’ve also have more dropped calls in the past eight months than my entire three years with Sprint. Although Sprint doesn’t have as wide a coverage map as AT&T, if sure did cover enough for me. AT&T seems to be lacking in many areas.

WiFi:
Being significantly faster than EDGE or 3G, it works great, but is a great battery drain. The only problem is that if you leave WiFi radio on for a decent amount of time, it slows to a crawl.

Bluetooth:
Support for stereo bluetooth is great. With the right phones you can wireless listen to your turns and leave your MP3 player at home. Tethering this thing to my laptop to use it as a wireless gateway worked great albeit a tad slow, but you’d have to use the buried Internet Connection Sharing. I also tethered this to other devices and it worked great as well. Guides here and here. Bluetooth tethering eats up battery life like no tomorrow, but it isn’t as bad as having WiFi turned on.

Pros:
Robust and great hardware. Sturdy.

Cons:
Software holds this thing back. Out of the box, it is mediocre, but finding the right software for this thing makes it much better. AT&T is lacking in included accessories, mainly that it provides none other than another stylus. So unlike Sprint where they include an USB-to-2.5 mm jack, a 512 MB microSD card, a screen protector, all you get in the box with AT&T is a USB charger and the phone with one additional stylus.

Conclusion:
For the person with enough patience to put up with the software downsides of the Tilt will find a great device that has a great community that has created much software and enhancements for it. On paper this thing is awesome, but the UI is not very intuitive. At times it’ll slow to a crawl to the point of unusable, it is frustrating to say the least. But loaded with the right ROM, it becomes slightly less rocky. My hope is that there will be an Android hack to make this thing capable of running Android. But I give this thing a 7 out of 10. Slightly better than the average phone. Be sure to visit XDA-developers for other enhancements.