Director Zack Snyder's worshipful adaptation of the much lauded graphic novel WATCHMEN derives its greatest strengths and difficulties from holding the source material in such high regard, and the result is a heroic effort but not a super entertaining film.  Wildly imaginative in vision and scope, but grimly somber when audiences may want to soar with the sometimes stunning visuals, WATCHMEN's occasional short circuits prevent an uninterrupted connection with the dramatic energy building to be unleashed.

WATCHMEN is blood-spattered detective story solving the murder of Edward Blake, a former masked hero known as The Comedian (Jeffrey Dean Morgan).  His death spurs a past compatriot, the inkblot-faced Rorschach (Jackie Earle Haley), to investigate the motive behind a crime authorities seem wary to question let alone investigate.  As Rorschach's narrated diary entries illustrate in a stinging indictment of this alternate reality America in 1985, this is a fallen world on the verge of nuclear self-immolation which has outlawed the superheroes who once kept it safe and sane.  This raises the film's central question: can masked, mortal heroes save humanity from its own worst nature, and why should they?

Spanning the history of this heroic team, originally dubbed the Minutemen in the 1940s, time and society have treated their saviors harshly with several members dying, going insane or retiring in exhaustion and apathy.  The Comedian played his role the longest, taking on some very unheroic assignments for the U.S. government, and ultimately paid a life-shattering price for his covertly sanctioned sins.

Rorschach calls on his fellow, defunct guardians to warn them of a lingering danger which may threaten them all.  As this lurking menace crystallizes in attempted assassination and global politics, the Watchmen must confront their own private demons when faced with their costumed alter egos once again.  Laurie (Malin Ackerman) has carried on her mother's super-persona as Silk Spectre and harbors animosity toward her for bestowing this family burden.  She is torn between her love for the only superpowered hero of the group, the blue-hued Dr. Manhattan (Billy Crudup behind the CGI glow), and the all-too human, insecure Dan Dreiberg (Patrick Wilson) who has retired his Nite Owl costume in exchange for a lonely, impotent life.

In fact, of these Watchmen, only Adrian Veidt (Matthew Goode) has surpassed his heroic image as Ozymandias to emerge a supercapitalist, cashing in on toy figures of his erstwhile crimebusting team and running a global conglomerate which permeates the consumerism of 1985 society.  If Dr. Manhattan has literally evolved beyond his connection to humanity, then Veidt has simply risen above life's mundane realities to focus on his own grandiose dreams of historical glory.  It is the collision of these disbanded allies which ignites the powder keg of suppressed agendas and personality flaws that once caused them to part as outcasts.  Indeed, their self-call to duty illustrates that any human can act heroically to preserve justice and defend the innocent, but these are dangerous acts in a world (led by four-term President Nixon, no less) which seems hell bent on forsaking those who would save it.

As Rorschach sifting through the metropolitan cess pool to salvage truth and justice after Blake's murder, Jackie Earle Haley energizes WATCHMEN almost singlehandedly, which is both an asset and a flaw in the film.  He is a post-modern film noir gumshoe growling about society's downfall while compelled to stand up for civilization despite lethal resistance — a fallen knight in ink-bleeding armor whose true face is as mysterious as it is meaningless.  Rorschach lives the adage: if you are not a true knight, you can act like one and still get the job done.

As his friends climb back into their outlandish, purposefully exaggerated costumes, they too rediscover the humanity in themselves worth saving, and can then attempt to avert nuclear armageddon.  Morgan, Ackerman, Crudup and Goode fall short of Haley's high-set bar, but they also have less to work with, ironically, by having too much biography to enact — time and again, their characters are short changed by plot functionality and the actors never gain emotional traction to involve viewers in their lives while appreciating their heroic dilemmas.  Wilson shows the most growth as Dan, a man who effectively retired from his better nature until plots against the Watchmen and his sparked affection for Laurie convince him to drop his mask of normality and live as only the Nite Owl persona lets him.

David Hayter and Alex Tse's dense script supports this comic-generated world effectively in adaptation (a feat unto itself), but too often the dearly held attention to detail diverts the emotional current behind these unmasked characters, and drama simmers when audiences may want it to boil up and draw us in.  A complete short-out is averted through Haley's work as Rorschach, a character who reveals the most of his humanity while playing the least sympathetic role in the cast.  This seeming contradiction gives WATCHMEN its spine upon which viewers can rely through the 163 minutes of wonderful Snyder-slo-mo action sequences and gritty, sometimes gruesome violence and dark humor.

Alex McDowell's production design, Michael Wilkinson's costumes and Larry Fong's cinematography deserve kudos for creating a drastically different world of masked superheroes which subtly (and not so) turn conventional comic book film aesthetics on their latex-covered ears.  While the litany of popular songs peppered throughout the soundtrack will get all the attention, composer Tyler Bates' less obvious and equally effective score enhances action and story well.

There is no doubting Snyder's sincerity in adapting the comic series by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons which redefined its genre in 1986, just as the director wishes to redefine the cinematic superhero genre here.  Snyder succeeds to large extent, but even so the graphic novel remains a difficult dramatic nut to crack — no doubt why many studios and artists have deemed it unfilmable for two decades.  To his credit, Snyder proves this is a false statement if only because it took a director who wielded cinema style like Spartans used shield and sword to prove the impossible a figment of lesser wills.

But having achieved the impossible, did his heroic effort yield an entertaining, satisfying story on the big screen?  Opinions will fall like the rain which pelts New York City throughout WATCHMEN, and no two views will splash down the same way.  Snyder entertains when he isn't bogged down in backstory, and his story satisfies when it charges forward from its heart as well as its intellect.  I have nothing against complex, intellectual storytelling (would that more films, superhero or otherwise, endeavor to try it), but neither is multilayered complexity a virtue in its own right.  There are simply times when the meanest cuts of true adaptation are necessary to keep hot, human blood flowing through WATCHMEN's intricate inner workings.  Occasionally, Snyder lets the clockwork precision tick on when a few imperfect heartbeats of passion and betrayal would feel right, even if they did deviate from the holy text.

I have no doubt a second viewing will reveal myriad details impossible to comprehend in this dazzling rich tapestry, for those who are willing to seek out all WATCHMEN has to offer in realizing this alternate reality, anti-heroic tale.  Zack Snyder most definitely delivers the goods, but like Dr. Manhattan, occasionally he risks alienating the audience by achieving the graphic novel's loftier artistic ideals rather than connection with the humanity of its flawed heroes.  Sometimes less is truly more, and the heart of a story often rises above the sum of its parts and not the gears themselves, however ingeniously engineered they are.