Tales of the Black Freighter

I was a huge fan of the Watchmen graphic novel and movie. I had already heard this was going to be released as its separate DVD, and frankly I wasn't that upset about it. As cool as it would have been to see this in the final version of the film, it was obviously the easiest thing to get rid of. Of course I was still curious to see how this came out. After watching it, I feel it's more of a cool bonus than anything. Maybe if they put it back into the movie it would bring it more into context and generally improve things, but as a standalone, it's merely ok.

I'll certainly give them credit for effort. The animation is very well done, and also has kind of a unique style going. I'm not good enough with words to describe it anymore beyond that, but the animation is well done. They easily could have half assed this but they didn't. Round of applause there.

There really isn't a whole lot of voice acting going on here, but Gerard Butler provides the voice of the lead character and he does a great job. His is really the only prominent voice so thank god it's done well.

The story is exactly the same as in the comic, but padded out to have at least some length. I actually watched this a second time with the graphic novel in hand, just to see how accurate it was and how faithful it remained. A lot of it is taken word for word, but there are quite a few changes here and there. All of the new material fits in perfectly however so again, a job well done there.

It is a bit ridiculous that this cartoon got its own DVD (granted there are other things on it but still) when the length is only around 20 minutes plus the credits. We're also apparently getting that 4 hour cut of the movie soon, so I'm sure they will be incorporating this cartoon back into the film. I think it will be a lot better when put into context with the rest of the story. As a standalone, it's a cool idea, but a pretty mediocre watch.

6/10