Explicit 'Watchmen' is sure to polarize audiences

WATCHMEN — ★★★ — Patrick Wilson, Billy Crudup, Jackie Earle Haley; rated R (violence, gore, profanity, nudity, sex, torture, rape, slurs, vulgarity, brief drugs); in general release

There are some very good reasons why "Watchmen" was considered "unadaptable" for so long.

Writer Alan Moore and artist Dave Gibbons' acclaimed, mid-'80s period comic book miniseries was very heady. (Among other things, it explored the Utopian and dystopian concepts and good-vs.-evil debates.)

So it seemed nearly impossible to get all that into one movie.

Yet now that it's been done competently and with surprising reverence to the source material, the end result is sure to polarize audiences. It's doubtful that anyone will walk out of the movie without a strong opinion, either positive or negative.

Also, the film is very R-rated, particularly in terms of its sometimes brutal and explicit, violent and sexual content. In fact, in some respects, it makes the PG-13 "Dark Knight" look like a light-hearted cartoon by comparison.

The title characters are a team of superheroes — The Comedian (Jeffrey Dean Morgan), Dr. Manhattan (Billy Crudup), Nite Owl (Patrick Wilson), Ozymandias (Matthew Goode), Rorschach (Jackie Earle Haley) and Silk Spectre (Malin Ackerman).

Unfortunately, their costumed exploits have been outlawed, and most of them are now living supposedly "normal" lives.

But when the Comedian is overpowered and murdered, Rorschach, who's been operating in secret, suspects they're all being targeted.

In the meantime, both Dr. Manhattan and Ozymandias are working on a solution to end the threat of supposed, "mutually assured destruction" (in this alternate reality, the United States and Russia are still bitter enemies).

And longtime friends Silk Spectre and Nite Owl, who both feel powerless to stop the impending doom, are growing much closer.

While changes have been made to the material — particularly toward the end — screenwriters David Hayter and Alex Tse's adaptation is surprisingly faithful … sometimes to a fault. And, lacking the text materials (particularly the "Under the Hood" bit), it feels a little incomplete.

(Allegedly, these segments were produced and will be inserted into a later, "directors-cut" version for an eventual DVD release.)