Even before it landed in theatres, "Watchmen" had quite the hype. The film directed by Zack Snyder (2007's "300") and based on the iconic graphic novel about a group of vigilante superheroes by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons (published in late 1980s) shows up on 3,611 screens, the widest opening ever for a film with an R-rating. Moore's name does not appear in the titles with Mr. Gibbons appearing oddly as the only "CO-creator" of the graphic novel. Moore has said that it is impossible to film Watchmen. A legal dispute also erupted last year (and has since been settled) by the film's domestic distributor Warner Bros. and another studio, Twentieth Century Fox, over rights issues. (Fox will now get a cut of Warner's profits.) But as they say, the only bad publicity is no publicity. And that doesn't seem to exist. Even the new electronic billboards used for marketing the release has its share of rancor - at least here in Southern California. But I digress…too.

The story begins with a violent, glass-shattering murder of the Comedian (Jeffrey Dean Morgan, the ghost from TV's "Grey's Anatomy"), one of the original members of an elite crime-fighting group of superheroes formerly own as the Minutemen. An Act of Congress forces the vigilantes into retirement and all but two have complied. Dr. Manhattan (Billy Crudup) and Rorschach (Jackie Earle Haley) are still active, but for different reasons. What gets the movie going is the murder's "who done it?" mystery. That triggers 2 hours and 40 minutes of flashbacks (a US victory against the Vietcong), alternate universes (Nixon is in the 5th term), digressions, whispered conversations and treks to Antarctica and Mars, to sort out the lives, the secrets, threat of nuclear war and…well, it's interminable. The graphic novel was very layered and there's no shortage of layers in the film either.

While the film has visually interesting and striking moments, a memorable prison quote by a solid Haley, the end result is over-ambition. By faithfully adapting the screenplay, the filmmakers had too much narrative to cover, including levels of violence, nudity (the blue-toned Dr. Manhattan is usually naked - why?) and gore and noise and on and on. "Watchmen" seems to too much to watch.