Who watches the Watchmen?

A number of my students have been eagerly anticipating last weekend’s opening of The Watchmen . After all, the movie is based on what has been called the greatest comic book of all time. It even made the list of the 20th century’s top 100 works of fiction, up there with Hemingway and Faulkner. But I can’t make heads or tails of the reviews. Some hail it as a landmark, while others deem “The Watchmen” unwatchable. Have any of you seen it? Please give me your take.

I suspect one needs to have read the comic–sorry, graphic novel!–first, since all I know about it is that it is narratively very complicated. In my youth, I was a fan of comic books, and I credit them with starting my taste for good stories and, eventually, good literature. Here is a comic–sorry, graphic novel!– that claims to be good literature, so I guess I should read it.