I give it a solid thumbs up. Went to see it with 2 Watchmen virgins and fan from when they sold the original issues back in ’86. Everyone liked the movie. I was afraid the Watchmen virgins would end up getting lost without having read the book but it held up.
SPOILER ALERT
My only real complain was the tweaked very ending. The book has Laurie Jupiter (Silk Spectre II) and Dan Dreiberg (Nite Owl II) changing identities riding off into the sunset to live happily ever after presumidly as normals not picking up there Superhero identies. The movie has them staying in New York and on the verge of staying with the Superhero life.
I liked the the change of “big bad that blows up New York City” from the comic to movie version. Outside of the panels of a comicbook the artist inspired tenciled horror beast doesn’t work. It kinda didn’t work for me in the comic book, other than it cleachedness.