10 Most Intense Comic Book Movie Performances Ever

2. Jackie Earl Haley As Rorschach

Zack Snyder's Watchmen is a noble failure. A spectacular one that had a tonne of money poured into it and which nobody expected would ever make it to live action, but a failure nonetheless. Much like Rodriguez's Sin City, it was entirely to beholden to the source material, terrified of changing anything to make it more genuinely cinematic. The director's style of filmmaking also proved to be a poor fit with that material, his slick aesthetic eye undercutting the brutal violence of the action scenes (meant to be an indictment of superhero comics, not cool) and the characters (Patrick Wilson does not have the paunch for Night-Owl). Besides the soundtrack and that opening credits sequence, the only thing that Watchmen really succeeded at was Rorschach. Jackie Earl Haley is the only actor who could convincingly play the part of the psychopathic, right-wing vigilante, his gravelly voice, battered face and basically ever scene he's in are perfectly intense.