Watchmen, the new, well-overhyped film from Paramount Pictures, is as faithful an adaption from its all-too-revered graphic novel source as could be. This is both the film’s greatest success as well as its greatest flaw.

Once considered the “unfilmable” graphic novel, Watchmen held a status of reverence which has placed it among the “100 Greatest Novels” by Time Magazine. Unlike most superhero movies, its source material is far less widespread, with a mere twelve issues making up its entire pantheon. Interesting, too, is its rabid fanboy devotion which will surely pick apart every scene with a kind of hair-splitting fervor that’s often reserved for legalistic religious scholars.

Zack Snyder picked up the director’s reins for Watchmen, having wowed mostly-male audiences with the overly graphic 300. Unlike most superhero films, none of its characters are on the lips of the average American (quick, can you recite the complete back story of the first Night Owl?), which makes this film an especially great challenge for any writer or director.

For any film to be successful not only with audiences but critics, it must stand on its own, despite its source material. Watchmen’s greatest faults are highlighted by the faults of any graphic novel, particularly the pacing and storytelling. On the plus side, nearly every scene was filmed as if they were pulled from the panels of its drawn counterpart, resulting in some of the most beautifully rendered images ever seen on film.

For the uninitiated, Watchmen tells a story in an alternate version of 1985 where costumed heroes weren’t the stuff of comic books (that realm was dedicated to pirate stories), but were a part of their recent history. So recent, in fact, that the government (with Nixon still in the White House) had passed a law that outlawed costumed heroes.

The opening credits are easily the most memorable of the film, which establish beautifully the “alternate history” of the movie, costumed weirdos and all. The difference between the heroes in Watchmen and our own comic – er – graphic novel pantheon is that none of the heroes had any real powers, except for one. The lone hero with authentic powers is an-often-naked-blue-dude name John Osterman who calls himself Doctor Manhattan.

The story of the film pretty much follows the source material panel-for-panel with a few exceptions. Edward Blake (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) is thrown out a window, and iconic smiley-face button gets stained with blood. The crime is investigated from the shadows by Rorschach (played perfectly by Jackie Earle Haley), whose deadpan voice and colored-shape shifting mask is far more than just an alter ego.

The film carries Rorschach as he interviews his old pal Dan Dreiberg (Angels In America’s Patrick Wilson) who longs for his past as the gadget-genius Night Owl. When we’re first introduced to Doctor Manhattan (Billy Crudup) in all his CGI-rendered blue, glowing, naked glory, he’s forty feet tall and totally detached from the world in which he lives.

To say more would require several dozen pages and a bazillion plot spoilers, so I’ll leave it at that.

The target of this film is clearly for those who are fans of the original comic series by writer Alan Moore and artist Dave Gibbons. When Moore was asked what he thought of the film, he succinctly stated that he would “never see that (word that rhymes with ducking) movie.” So, there’s not much love there. Not that he’d ever give it a chance.

The rest of us, though, meet the film with a cautious eye, hoping that it won’t completely tear apart the source material, and still have a good movie. The good news and bad news in all of this is this: Indeed the original story is intact. The bad news is that a few points have been changed (some for the good, some not so much). Because of this, die-hard and devoted fans may be up in arms over the film’s changes.

Of course, there’s also the big blue penis, which isn’t nearly as distracting as one might think it would be. See? Male nudity can be done tastefully. Still, I can’t help but wonder if the guys doing the CGI were snickering the entire time while modeling Osterman’s male appendage.

There’s plenty to like with Watchmen, but there’s also plenty of yawner scenes that could have been easily cut. It’s not terrible, but it’s also not great. Yet, I find myself wondering if it could have been any better than it is. Without the decades of encyclopedic material that support the Batman and Spider-Man franchises, Watchmen finds itself in the only frames and stories it knows how to tell. Much to our delight, it’s a decent story, leaving Watchmen well in the category of a successful translation from panel to screen.

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