It may be hard to believe, but there was a time when people said Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’ “Watchmen” would be impossible to film. After all, it was the “Citizen Kane” of superhero comics, a marriage of inventive storytelling, critical commentary and visual ingenuity that capitalized on the unique artistic possibilities of its medium. Not to mention that it would be expensive as hell to make and, if adapted faithfully, rated “R” — a doubly dicy proposition in the Hollywood studio system.
But that was then and this is now. Zack Snyder brought “Watchmen” to the big screen 15 years ago with a well-intentioned but overblown adaptation that was respectful to the material until it wasn’t, altering a single, load-bearing plot point that made the whole story collapse.