Never read the graphic novel... thought the movie was somewhere between average and crappy.
My buddy summed up the movie with one word: "Gratuitous"
As in gratuitous violence, sex, etc...
It was rather long. Not that compelling. Not that interesting, actually. I didn't care about any of the characters. I didn't care about the plot. It pretty much played out like this:
BORING, BORING, BORING, BORING, BORING, SHOCK SCENE!!, BORING, BORING, BORING, BORING, SHOCK SCENE!!!, BORING BORING... etc
Like I said, I haven't read the graphic novel. I guess it came out in a time when comics were overly cheesy... and perhaps this kind of material was groundbreaking, revolutionary and mature... and I know I've read things about how they took every opportunity possible to maximize the medium. I'm sure it's great stuff... but I'm saying as a movie it was forgettable and not worth seeing a second time.
The cheese of comicbook characters was still there... and maybe the only interesting parts of the movie were the "shock scenes". Not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing... but the only memorable points were... unbelievably brutal violence, shooting a pregnant girl in the head, an attempt at rape, a softcore sex scene akin to what you'd get from skinemax, big blue guy showing off his big blue phallus, cutting off some fat guy's hands, watching rabid dogs chew up a dead little girl's leg... I mean... honestly. The rest of it was just exhausting and boring to watch as a movie. And honestly I think I was mostly entertained by those "gratuitous" scenes simply because I kept thinking "oh my god this kind of stuff must make half this audience uncomfortable"... resulting in mild laughter and vocal responses like "good lord!... (laughter) ... this is unbeievable! (laughter) ".
Sorta like the over-the-top squirting blood scenes in "Kill Bill", but those were intentionally funny.
As a Graphic Novel? Dunno
As a movie... 55 out of 100 just for having crisp visuals and mild (if not sick) entertainment.