I was skeptical, as I believe nearly everyone was, going to see this movie. How can you faithfully adapt to the silver screen what is often considered the greatest graphic novel ever written (though technically it should be called a trade paperback) -- especially one that collects a series of twelve comic book issues, each of which is novella-dense? Such a project is simply too big to wield, I thought. I was wrong. Clocking in at two hours and forty-three minutes, Zack Snyder's adaptation of Watchmen amazingly stays true to both the spirit and the content of the comic. This is an epic tale of heroism, morality, humanity, and the confusion inherent in understanding what any of those terms mean in an ever-changing world.

Watchmen is about superheroes. It is about men and women who dress in silly costumes to fight crime. However, it transcends most such comic books (and their adaptations) in that it acknowledges that, yes, this is a silly thing to do. The characters are also redeemed by this very quality. They are not simplistic, invincible cartoon characters fighting bad guys in order to look cool and maybe save the world; these are sad, if not misguided, human beings with a genuine will to try to make the world a better place, each according to his own beliefs. At the same time that we may laugh at them for dressing up in owl costumes or spouting super-conservative beliefs as absolutes, we also admire them for fighting for something they believe in. When one character says, "[I] have lived life free from compromise and step into the shadow now without complaint," as he walks toward what he knows could very well be his death, we believe him, and we feel his contentment. This sense of humanity is the core of Watchmen.

After an extended opening montage that both provides the background for the "masked vigilantes," as they are referred to (read: human superheroes), that perfectly evokes a sense of nostalgia, the story begins and is framed as a simple whodunnit. Masked vigilantes have now (now being the era of the Nixon administration) been long outlawed, and one of them, "the Comedian," suddenly winds up murdered. Rorschach, a rather infamous masked vigilante and the only one still active, investigates and begins warning the retirees, believing that a mask-killer is out to eliminate them. It would be foolhardy to attempt to summarize all the subplots and back-stories that arise, but briefly put, this bud of a plot blossoms into a complex story involving atomic bombs, Mars, a beyond-genius and beyond-mad conspiracy, the un-retirement of former superheroes, and a desperate attempt to unite the world in the face of a third world war.

The film's motifs -- heroism, morality, and humanity -- are ever-present. Unlike many superhero films with good guys to root for and bad guys to throw popcorn at, each main character in this movie has his own view of morality. Because of this, Watchmen is, in part, a moralistic sandbox, a place to throw all these things together to see which, if any, prove to be better than the rest. Some of the characters are radical utilitarians, some are ultra conservatives, some are absolute nihilists, and others are fairly pedestrain do-gooders, and they are all given a fair chance. If you view this movie with a friend, it is very likely that when it ends, you will have different views of who the bad, the good, and the ugly were. That is part of Watchmen's beauty. No single moral ideology comes out on top in this movie because they all have their virtues and their faults.

On the other hand, if you simply want a movie to watch without having to devote much thought to, Watchmen still entertains. At its extremely simplest level, it is an action-mystery film and in fact seems to emphasize the action, and the violence, a bit more than the book. There are plenty of bloody noses, broken arms, great physical feats, and scenes where our heroes take on multitudes of criminals with relative ease. Though there are one or two instances in which the action goes on for slightly too long, it provides a strong dose of excitement on top of what is already a very engaging film. The movie, in other words, is not only thematically meaningful but superficially fun; if all you want is another comic book movie, Watchmen is prepared to deliver you that as well.

I'm sure some of you are waiting for this, and rightfully so: there is a strong element of science fiction in Watchmen. I said that the superheroes are humans dressing up in funny-looking outfits, but there is one true superhuman, a character called Dr. Manhattan, and his role is a crucial part of the story. Dr. Manhattan is the reincarnation of a man who was atomized in an intrinsic field chamber at a military complex. His constituent atoms slowly reassembled over days, and he came back into existence as a glowing blue copy of a man with god-like powers. "The super-man exists," says a newscaster, "and he is American." This character can alter matter with the sheer force of will. He disassembles machines without touching them. He replicates himself to perform multiple tasks at once. He grows hundreds of feet tall to win wars for America. He teleports himself, and others, with a mere thought. In fact, he sums himself up beautifully and succinctly at one point when he says, "I've walked across the sun. I've seen events so tiny and so fast they hardly can be said to have occurred." The character opens the film to a great depth of philosophical concerns.

One such concern is of the significance of life. Whereas the human characters force us to ask ourselves what it means to be humane, it is Dr. Manhattan who forces us to question why life matters at all. In his view we are each a mass of molecules, just like any other matter, only more complex (and more bothersome). In one of the film's most beautiful scenes, Dr. Manhattan becomes fed up with Earth's affairs, so he teleports himself to Mars. We go into this scene with a very wide shot, emphasizing the vastness of his solitude. He is all alone, with an entire planet to himself. Here, he can manipulate matter to his heart's content without human bickering to get in his way; he can appreciate the universe without distractions, environments unadulterated by man. When his last connection to humankind is severed, it is here that he is happiest. In his view, the world is better off without human life.

However, Dr. Manhattan has an epiphany. I will not give it away, other than to say that it is an astonishing revelation in which he determines, scientifically, the cosmic significance of life. It is, as far as science fiction goes, perhaps the single most important part of the film, and the fact that it is so believably delivered by a being so detached from life makes it, of course, infinitely meaningful. All in all, the movie's sci-fi quality allows us to transcend conventional thought to the level of scientific-philosophical inquiry and by doing so actually strengthen our humanitarian beliefs.

I have spent much of this review discussing one character. I will leave the others untouched, not because of their non-sci-fi nature but because to do so would be to compose a tome -- one that takes the fun out of watching the characters develop for yourself. All you need to know is that every main character in the film -- there are six of them -- is given the same depth of treatment as Dr. Manhattan. Their beliefs and their values are all put on full display so that we can learn from them and so that we can see how they hold up in the real world. It is part of the reason the film is so long, and it also accounts for the fact that, despite its length, it contains not a single dull moment.

There are a million more things I could say about Watchmen, especially if I brought the book into the review, which it is taking every bit of my willpower to restrain from doing. Allow me just to say that the film is as viscerally exciting and visually stunning as the book is intellectually rich. Whereas the book is a product of genius; the movie is a work of inspiration. It inspires you to commit yourself to something you believe in, with the eternal understanding that your beliefs may be misguided.