Empire has the exclusive trailer for Watchmen (well, "exclusive" for now, at least--don't be surprised if this pops up in front of The Dark Knight), the cinematic adaptation of what might very well be the most respected and beloved comic book ever written. Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons' comic is nothing short of breathtaking, and the film--which is directed by Zack Snyder, the dude behind 300, everyone's favorite homoerotic fratboy beat-'em-up--has a lot to live up to. I'm actually not entirely sure Watchmen, even in the best of hands, can be translated well to film, and seeing if Snyder will be able to do so should be, at the very least, interesting.

It does look like it's gonna be visually spectacular: I really like how Snyder's not shying away from using the comics' vibrant, super-bright color palette, and a couple of the shots in this thing are pretty amazing. Tonally, as to how the whole thing feels? Not so sure. I'm kind of befuddled and nervous and excited about this all at once.

Goddamn. I want this to be good. Check out the trailer here.

Thanks to AICN for the heads up.

UPDATE: That link's not working anymore--sounds like Empire might've jumped the gun and posted the trailer early, so Warner Bros. yanked it down. I'll update this entry as soon as I hear about a new version being put up (hopefully, that'll be soon). In the meantime, the trailer can still probably be found in some corner of the internet, should the dedicated among you care to do some sleuthing.

UPDATE AGAIN. Phew. Here it is. For real.