While it still surprises me now, I'd never even heard of Watchmen at that stage, but was intrigued in the story when it was announced that the man who brought 300 to life in such a wham-bam way, Zach Snyder, was to helm the first ever live-action movie adaptation.

Carrying on from Robert Rodriguez and what he achieved with the groundbreaking Sin City (2005), along with its creator Miller, Snyder seemed to have some talent when it came to turning the pages of a 'serious' comic into a 'seriously' good film, and, importantly, keeping that whole comic feel.

Of course, upon proper investigation - after running a Google Images search for 'the watchman' and getting pictures of some little green alien character - I realised 'Watchmen' (with an ‘e’) was more than just a great comic or great graphic novels (comics for adults). It was a truly great piece of literature - heralded as being among Time magazine's Greatest 100 Novels.

While I had read the odd Spider-man and Batman comic in my early teens after seeing Tim Burton's Batman - Watchmen became the first graphic novel I would ever purchase, at the ripe old age of 29.

As I read it, engrossed in the story centering around a retired team of superheroes ‘slash’ vigilantes forced back into action in varying degrees after the murder of one of their own, I realised why so many directors had contemplated trying to turn it into a live-action piece.

And as I read it further, I realised why so many had been ultimately unwilling to follow through with any grand plan. Any script simply thrown into the old 'too hard basket'.

Watchmen is indeed more than just another superhero story, but a truly complex body of work, the graphic novel made of 12 parts that were released throughout late 1986 and early 1987, dealing with many complex issues, real and unreal.

It went where no comic book had gone before, where many had tried to go since but without the same degree of success. It unmasked the traditional superhero in an nontraditional way.

The story is set in an alternative 1985, with many a flashback from the four decades prior.

It is a world in which costumed crime-fighters were once true heroes to be called upon, and to be idolised, but now are pushed into the dark corners of a very dark and bleak existence, outlawed by the powers that be. Among those 'powers' is one Richard Nixon, now into his third (yes, third) term as President of the United States.

It is a universe though that still has some similarities to our real world. Our real 1985. Among them the only 'real' superpowers left, the USA and the USSR, who are on the brink of a nuclear war. Some things never change.
Watchmen, written by Alan Moore with illustrations from Dave Gibbons, is deep, dealing with everything from politics to religion, impotence to rape, inferiority-complexes to God-complexes.

Suffice to say, the graphic novel lived up to the (very subtle) hype that surrounded it, and while it will forever stand over the film, Snyder has done a damn good job. It’s not perfect, but at least he had the balls to go where no director had gone before by actually making Watchmen and making a damn good film.

Former Monty Python member Terry Gilliam, the man behind some of my all-time favorites (Time Bandits, 12 Monkeys etc) was one who once appeared set to fill the director's chair for Watchmen the movie, but figured the only way to do the subject justice was turning it into a mini-series, ala Stephen King’s The Stand if you like.

While he may have lessened the intellectual side of things a little, and condensed a few situations to add more action - that is what blockbuster movies are all about - Snyder has managed to cram as much as he could from Moore and Gibbons’ work into the 155-minute running time as possible. I think he must be applauded for sticking to his guns and having enough clout to be allowed to release a film (that isn;t The Lord of the Rings) that long.

Snyder has gone out of his way to replicate as many scenes, as many images as possible from the graphic novel. After all, as he has said in the past, a graphic novel offers a director a ready-made photo-board.

The dark, moody look and feel of the comic remains, which should please many a Watchmen fan. Maybe not the die-hards, but are they ever happy with their own particular 'bible' being brought to the screen?

But, just like the graphic novel, Snyder has presented a thoroughly thrilling ride, bringing his own style - big on visuals, big on action - and with only a few changes from the print version, some minor, some not so.

Subtly different, the graphic novel is a work of genius, while the film is an extravagant piece of entertainment. It's no masterpiece, lacks a little of substance of the book, but is certainly fun.

The long running time allows the audience enough time to get to know the various main characters, though I must admit, it does help to have read the graphic novel or be sitting next to someone who has in order to explain any details that may have been missed the final cut.

Each of Watchmen's main players get a little more time to kick some butt in the movie, most notably Laurie Jupiter aka Silk Spectre II (Malin Akerman) and Dan Drieberg aka Nite Owl II (Patrick Wilson), with Snyder using that technique in which he slows down and then speeds up fight scenes all to some rocking soundtrack, similar to what we saw in 300.

Snyder's film begins replicating the opening to the graphic novel with the brutal beating and ultimately death of Edward Blake aka The Comedian (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) in his apartment by an unknown assailant. The ageing bigman is thrown around with unbelievable ease, and eventually through the window and to his death 20-or-so floors below.

It is this action that sets up the rest of the story of Watchmen.
Following a long albeit clever opening title sequence that tries to explain the origins of the original masked crime-fighters who banded together to form the first Watchmen in the 1940s, and their various, and at times, amusing, exits from the superhero business.

It also shows the torch being passed to the latter-day Watchmen, and, importantly the reasons behind their own demise, essential due to the Keene Act passed in 1977 to ban superheroes, a concept borrowed in large part by the makers of the animated The Incredibles (2004).

In this now superhero-free society, Adrian Veidt aka Ozymandias (Matthew Goode) is one of only two former caped crusaders to have gone public with their true identity. Something that has helped him become a hugely successful and suave businessman. More powerful than he ever was behind a mask.

The bespeckled Drieberg lives a much simpler life, content to catch up with his predecessor, Hollis Mason aka the first Nite Owl (Stephen McHattie) every week to reminisce about past glory.

Jon Osterman aka the blue-covered and usually naked Dr Manhattan (Billy Crudup), the only one to actually possess superpowers after an accident in which the scientist was caught and disintegrated in an "Intrinsic Field sub-tractor" in 1959, now works in almost isolation for the US Government, causing increased tension between the US and USSR governments.

Jupiter is his live-in girlfriend who has grown frustrated with her man's growing distance from her, despite him having the ability to create at least three other versions of himself to try and please her in the bedroom while he works. He can also grow to enormous sizes. But, some women are never happy.

Then there's the bad-tempered Rorschach, who we later learn to be Walter Kovacs (Jackie Earle Haley), a small man with a big right hook, and a Batman-esque gruff voice, who is desperate to get the old group back together after he discovers that the now deceased Blake was once The Comedian.

The Comedian is somewhat of an anti-hero, or just plain bastard, who tried to rape Jupiter's mother and the first Silk Spectre, Sally Jupiter (Carla Gugini), during his early days. He also shot and killed a Vietnamese woman who was carrying his baby.

In this alternate Watchmen universe, Blake also now works for the government and helped Dr Manhattan win the Vietnam War for the Americans. He was also the second gunman up on the grassy knoll on that fateful day in Dallas when John F Kennedy was shot, and did away with Watergate journalists Woodward and Bernstein for Nixon.

The Comedian probably gets what he deserves when he becomes the first of those considered a threat to a plot to destroy several major cities around the world and killing millions. The next is the super-charged Dr Manhattan, whose gradual outgrowing of mankind is sped up after he accused of giving former friends an colleagues cancer. He takes off to Mars.

The motion-capture CG work to bring Dr Manhattan to life has been done very well. Technology has come along way. If Watchman the movie had have been made 10 or 20 years ago, we may have had some actor simply painted blue.

Instead we had Crudup putting in a very solid performance in the LED suit worn previously (but not literally) by Angelina Jolie as Grendel's Mother in Beowulf and Andy Serkis as Gollum in The Lord of the Rings series. He actually gives the character a voice that I was not expecting but eventually realised was perfect. He's like a lost soul. While they are Crudup's movements, the beefed-up actually body belongs to model Greg Plitt.

Just like in the comic Snyder lets Dr Manhattan all hang out, literally. Though I don't think the blue penis that is on display a couple of times throughout the film is Mr Crudup's either.

Haley, about to be seen as Freddy Kruger in the new A Nightmare on Elm Street, is a standout as the tormented Kovacs, a true vigilante who gets around wearing a white mask with ink blots that constantly shift. Rorschach is the thread that keeps the whole show together, from beginning to end. The heart and soul.

He's is not one to hold back and dishes out some powerful beatings, such as when he is captured by police (thanks to this unidentified criminal mastermind), his identity is revealed and is sent to prison, winding up alongside so many he himself had helped put behind bars.

Wilson is proving to be a reliable actor and really does the job as the mild-mannered Drieberg, who, despite having grown a bit of a gut, is compelled to squeeze back into the Batman-esque Nite Owl suit, hanging up in his Batman-esque lair below his not-so Bruce Wayne apartment. This suit, it must be said, is one of the major changes from book to film, and it is a big improvement

Goode, the Brit who is set for a pretty big career, probably doesn't get as much screen time as some of the others, but neither did his character in the novel. Yet, as the Aryan-type superman, as Snyder describes Ozymandias, he is terrific, with a slight German accent topping off his portrayal. The only problem with him is, unlike Nite Owl's new costume, Ozymandias' can look a bit ridiculous at times. But, it's not because of the nipples (which pay homage to George Clooney's Batman and Robin) but the mask. It just doesn't look right.

Akerman certainly holds her own as the female star of the film, and gets to strut her stuff in a much much improved costume to the one from the comics and at times doesn't leave a whole hell of a lot to the imagination. She gets down and dirty with co-star Wilson, which leaves even less to the imagination, and is another reason why Watchmen is not one of those fun-filled family films.

Laurie's relationship with Blake was probably one aspect that wasn't explored well enough, with a vital flashback scene - which involved Blake at one stage after a get-together of Watchmen coming on to the much young woman who it is revealed late in the piece to actually be his daughter - being left out.

Morgan plays the part of the grizzled old 'man's man' well. And apparently got Snyder to up the amount of swearing that comes out of Blakes' foul-mouth for the film.

The biggest change from graphic novel to feature-length film was elements of the ending. Veidt (Ozymandias) remains the destructive force behind Blake's murder, Dr Manhattan's banishing and Rorschach's incarceration, and his ultimate goal is still to bring world peace by bringing together the US and USSR after a major tragic event.

But, it is the event that is altered by Snyder. In the graphic novel he transports a giant alien squid from another dimension which covers Manhattan. In the movie, he detonates energy reactors created from Dr Manhattan's power in several cities, including poor old New York (again) and Moscow.

Again, credit to Snyder and the writers though for following through - and not taking the safe option - and killing millions of innocents. As harsh as it may be, it essential to the Watchmen story, particularly what happens next.

Snyder's Watchmen is not Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight - the intensity of that film cannot be matched - but it certainly sits up there among the best superhero movies of all-time. Probably just behind recent favorites Ironman (2008) and Spider-Man (2002), but miles ahead of Superman Returns (2006) and light years in front of Batman and Robin (1997) and The Spirit (2008).

In fact, Warners Bros, could do alot worse than get Snyder to take over the Superman reigns from SR's Bryan Singer. We need more action from the man in the red undies and from what he's shown with 300 and Watchmen, Snyder could certainly deliver it, and in spades.

RATING: 8.5/10
Who's watching the Watchmen? asks the film's tag ... well, I have, and I probably will again.