I Watched the Watchmen...

While not perfect, Watchmen delivers--especially for the fans.

Set in an alternate 1985, someone is taking out former masked crime fighters known as the Watchmen. Since such crime fighting was banned back in the 70s, masked vigilante Rorschach decides to reach out to his remaining Watchmen to get to the bottom of the conspiracy. That story is set against a backdrop of a world where Nixon remains President and the looming threat of nuclear war is days away from reality. Alan Moore's cherished classic is done justice through Director Zack Snyder's key vision of that world, which he manages to accomplish without changing the overall story drastically or overstyling everything, as he did with 300.

Snyder's dedication to the source material bleeds all over the movie, some scenes unfolding panel for panel straight out of the graphic novel. There's times when Snyder is basically flipping the pages for you on screen, and that's exactly what should please fans most.

The casting is also dead on, particularly Jeffrey Dean Morgan (as the Comedian), Jackie Earle Haley (Rorschach) and Patrick Wilson (as Night Owl). They know how to work with the dialogue that more often than not comes directly from the book.

The biggest task the movie faced was being able to reveal the layers of these characters and their psychosis. It's that complexity that makes the book an honored classic among fanboys and girls and listed among Time Magazine's 100 Best Novels. The film does a hell of a job doing it's best to nail that, though it falls just short of what the book ultimately offers. Still, it's a valiant effort and totally worth it, if only just to see the Watchmen in action. And Snyder knows how to handle action. This is a Summer Blockbuster a season early and it should satisfy diehards and newcomers alike.