"The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen"
Some of most memorable characters from late 19th Century literature must
join forces to fight an evil maniac called the Fantom and save the
world. Adventurer Allan Quartermain (Sean Connery), vampire Mina Harker
(Pela Wilson), invisible man Rodney Skinner (Tony Curran), split
personality Dr.Jekyll & Mr. Hyde (Jason Flemyng), ageless Dorian Gray
(Stuart Townsend), infamous Captain Nemo (Naseeruddin Shah) and American
Secret Service agent Tom Sawyer (Shane West) are brought together to
form "The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen."
If there were truth in advertising required when titling movies, this
should really be called "The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen Stuck In
An Incredibly Mediocre Movie." A friend of mine lent me the comic book
series to read before I saw the film and I figured I would check out the
source material by Allan Moore and Kevin O'Neill. While I'm not a fan of
graphic comics I found the series a very clever super hero tale with a
funky melding of the disparate personalities that make up the League,
lots of dark humor and flashy sci-fi action. The scope of the work -
this Victorian A-Team must stop an evil, inventive genius from
destroying London with his atomic powered flying machine - is huge but,
with advances in computer animation, doable if given the budget. Thus
prepared, I went to see "The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen," the
movie.
Things start off well enough with our first glimpse of the strangely
different world of 1899 as an incredible machine bursts onto a London
street, routing the astounded constabulary and smashing into the heart
of a bank. By golly! It's a tank straight out of World War One, the
first of many such future references that meld Jules Verne and H.G.
Wells into this tale of the heroes saving the world. The exciting
opening and the introduction of all of the members of the League is
entertaining and fills the first half hour adequately. Then, things kick
into gear as our odd assemblage of heroes must stop the evil genius, the
Fantom, from exterminating the leaders of the world and, in the process,
destroying the beautiful city of Venice.
This could have been sufficient for a complete story but, since you
can't have too much of a good thing, director Stephen Norrington and
company, including executive producer Sean Connery, belly up to the bar
with a script by James Dale Robinson that has little to do with the
source material. Instead of even attempting to stay true to the
original, the makers decided to revamp, entirely, the story, keeping the
intro'd characters, adding a few more, and plugging it all into a stock
world-crisis-and-the-assemblage-of-experts-brought-together-to-save-said
-world a la "Armageddon" and "The Core." There is nothing, except the
characters and cuteness to recommend this insult to its source.
Production values, from the all wheel drive Dussenberg-like car that
races across Venice (having been there, no mean feat for sure) to the
other future devices like machine guns (lots and lots of machine guns)
and Captain Nemo's submarine, the huge but surprisingly unfabulous
Nautilus. The famous boat is merely a conglomeration of lots of big sets
but little to make you think that you are traveling in a fantabulous
vehicle of the future. The Nautilus of the 1954 flick, "20,000 Leagues
Under the Sea," had far more character than this new rendition of Jules
Verne's creation.
The rest of the production, including the several action sequences, are
very well made and expensive looking but the action itself consists of
bunches of bullets and lots of chop-sockey fights and little more. The
look of "The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen" is far lusher than the
by-the-numbers script by James Dale Robinson deserves. The adaptation is
unimaginative and routinely told and fails to do justice to the
well-crafted sets and special F/X.
The large ensemble cast is personable enough but none of the players is
given more than comic book treatment. Sean Connery is an icon in his
chosen field and effortlessly gives depth to his Allan Quartermain - the
septuagenarian still struts his stuff well. Peta Wilson, as Mina Harker
and the group's only woman, reigns over the crew like a queen bee and
gives dignity to her bloodsucking vampire. The rest are little more than
a who's who of turn of the 19th century sci-fi literature. Faring least
well in the ensemble is Jason Flemyng's Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. The
former is bland and the latter, a giant misshapen creature, will be
compared, poorly, on many levels to the new Hulk. The bad guy, the
Fantom, is too ambiguous for disdain by the audience and represents
wasted opportunity - there isn't one maniacal laugh in the whole film!
Why the filmmakers chose to, basically, ignore the source material is a
mystery to me. The end of "The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen"
provides ample material for a sequel. Too bad they didn't make a film
that deserves to have a sequel. I give it a D+.
For more Reeling reviews visit www.reelingreviews.com
Robin@reelingreviews.com
laura@reelingreviews.com
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X-Language: en
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X-RT-TitleID: 1123784
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X-RT-RatingText: D+
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