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It’s got buckets of gore, truckloads of angst, hot superhero sex, full-frontal radiation-monster nudity, soap opera machinations, pulp fiction voice-overs, weekend trips to Mars, a few dozen conspiracy theories, evil politicians and enough back stories for the next half-dozen superhero movies.

“Watchman” is at least as silly as it is magnificent, as confounding as it rewarding.

Zack Snyder’s faithful-as-it-could-be adaptation of the cult-worthy graphic novel is probably too faithful for its own good. It’s an unruly creation, but give Snyder some credit: He pulled off a project that was long thought unfilmable and has done so with a good bit of integrity to its source material.

This is a film for the book’s fanboys, many of whom have been waiting 23 years to see the creation of writer Alan Moore and artist Dave Gibbons come to the screen. I suspect the diehard fans will be pleased, though eventually a little let down: It’s been a long wait, and can any film match their feverish anticipation? Probably not.

Meanwhile, if the uninitiated want to come along, well, fine. Just hang on, and prepare for some bizarre, confusing stuff in the two hours and 41 minutes ahead.

Do note, though, that the last hour begins to seriously drag, even if you’ve been sucked into the film’s nutty orbit. So much happens, so many characters are featured, that it’s hard to work up the needed emotional involvement to get us through the Inevitable Showdown in the Evil Genius’ Hidden Lair.

Snyder, who made the witty, exciting “Dawn of the Dead” remake and the ridiculously overpraised Spartan romp “300,” gets “Watchmen” off to a fine start with his opening credits sequence. Set to Bob Dylan banging on an acoustic guitar about how the times are a-changing, it’s a nifty montage starting in the 1940s.

It tells the story of the Minutemen, homegrown heroes in retro tights and masks who gave rise to the more nihilistic Watchmen. They, in turn, crossed the line between crime-fighting and vigilantism and were eventually outlawed by Congress.

But not before an evil Richard Nixon used them to connive his way into a long third term in office. It seems Watchmen had a hand in killing JFK, ending Vietnam, neutralizing Woodward and Bernstein and keeping the Soviets in check.

Now, though, the U.S. and Soviets are marshalling their nukes and the doomsday clock is ticking ever closer to midnight.

Against that backdrop, a 67-year-old former masked crime fighter known as The Comedian (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) is murdered, chucked out of a high-rise window. He was an amoral creep who had many enemies, but his fellow Watchman, the masked Rorschach (Jackie Earle Haley), thinks the murder is a sign that someone’s going to come for the others, too.

They are, in brief: Nite Owl II (Patrick Wilson), a Batman-like rich kid who’s grown a little chubby and a lot impotent as he hides from his past (he keeps his old suit down in the basement of his modest apartment).

Ozymandias (Matthew Goode), a megalomaniac (the name gives him away) who markets Ozymandias action-figures, runs a huge international business and is the smartest man in the world.

Silk Spectre II (Malin Ackerman, quite wooden) is a sexy young thing who’s drawn to the most superheroest of the bunch, the glowing blue, naked Dr. Manhattan (Billy Crudup, underacting nicely for someone who’s glowing, blue and naked). The victim of a lab accident, he’s become a godlike creature who’s able to see his past and present, teleport to Mars and keep the world’s nuclear standoff at an uneasy balance.

Thing is, he’s tiring of these humans and their petty squabbles and emotions.

Trouble’s ahead.

“Watchmen” does a fine job setting up its complex alternate reality, but that’s where most of its rewards lie. There’s some fun to be had: See Pat Buchanan and Eleanor Clift argue about them on “The McLaughlin Report.” Look for Ted Koppel, JFK, Lee Iacocca and others. See Andy Warhol paint them, Annie Leibovitz shoot them.

Some scenes along the way have a brooding charge to them that approach the glory of Robert Rodriguez’s take on Frank Miller’s “Sin City,” which by my reckoning is still the finest of the gloomy graphic-novel adaptations. The Comedian’s anti-social ways and Rorschach’s mutterings about how the world is going to hell make for some perversely entertaining filmmaking.

But after all that setting up, all those back stories, the plot eventually has to get into motion. And that’s where “Watchmen” starts to run into problems, even as the end of the world looms. There’s a hole at its heart; it misses strong characters we can really give a **** about. And so it doesn’t so much fall apart as just sort of fade away – an odd fate after all that blood and noise and passion.

2 hours, 41 minutes. R. Strong graphic violence (some really nasty stuff), sex, nudity, cussing.