But the book's spirit—its paranoia, its dark humor, and above all its bleak anti-triumphalism—has been squelched in the transition to a big-budget action epic.

Watchmen the film kicks off with a bravura credit sequence that uses tableaux vivants

The psychological sophistication of Moore's novel survives in a few story lines here, especially during Dr. Manhattan's periodic jaunts to Mars. (It's the only place he can be alone and think, a kind of spa retreat in the sky.)

When Jackie Earle Haley doffs his mask midway through the movie, the sweaty, shifty, ratlike face beneath is a hundred times more frightening and fascinating than any inkblot could be. But damned if he doesn't clap the mask back on again shortly thereafter, thereby muffling one of the film's few gripping performances.

The other one—Billy Crudup's—also risks being smothered by the digital animation that renders his face near-unrecognizable and his body (with dangling azure wang on full view) completely so.