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 League of Extraordinary Gentlemen DVD
Starring: Sean Connery, Naseeruddin Shah, Peta Wilson, Tony Curran, Stuart Townsend, Shane West, Jason Flemyng
Director: Stephen Norrington
League of Extraordinary Disappointments
In the wake of some well done Comic inspired movies, LXG reminds us of how badly done they can be.
Reviewed by Kevin Cunningham
Comic books have been the source of movies for a very long time, but only recently have they actually produced movies of any quality. However, buoyed by the recent success of both mainstream (X-Men, Spiderman) and independent (Ghost World, From Hell) comic movies, the use of such material has become more popular than ever. It was from these successes that Alan Moore's The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen came to be. Unfortunately, the ingenious concept of collecting the greatest 19th Century literary characters into one action story failed to translate in any way to the big screen.
The film relies heavily on Sean Connery, who plays legendary adventurer Alan Quatermain, to carry it. While Sean Connery is still the same wily but wise old man who appears in The Hunt for Red October and Entrapment, his performance in a film designed to center on several action sequences only carries it so far. It does not help that Connery is not accompanied by any actor of similar standing in this film. While the characters in the film are a who's who of late 19th century literature, the gravity of these characters coming together would have been better served by an all-star cast. While the actors are not terrible by any stretch of the imagination, they also do not stand out.
Moore's story also has trouble being translated into the new form, though that is no fault of Moore's. The story in the movie is very different from the original told in Moore's book, starting with the addition of Tom Sawyer to the cast. While in itself, this isn't a bad idea, it does a little too much to perfectly balance out the League, and it doesn't take long for the League to pair off into rivalries filled with respect.
The pacing of the script is also far too obvious. The action sequences are too easily paced off into three big segments, one early, one in the middle to add a twist to the script, and of course, the finale. What's worse is that the slow exposition scenes between the action are far too slow and carry far too much exposition to be of much entertainment value.
But the film's final transgression is in the inconsistency of such details that drive fanboys crazy. One of the worst is use of the Nautilus, Captain Nemo's ship, from scene to scene. In one shot the boat must be at least 500 yards long and several stories high, appearing to rival an aircraft carrier is size. And yet, this ship is also apparently small enough to navigate the canals of Venice, and do so unnoticed. This film is filled with other such logic holes that are the source of good drinking games everywhere, but when it's all said and done, I don't think there's enough to entertain even the drunkest of viewers.
DVD Extras: LXG's main DVD extra exists in a dozen deleted and extended scenes. What's scary is how much most of these scenes add to the already overwhelming exposition of this movie. The commentary is decent, but nothing extraordinary. You're not missing anything if you don't listen to it.
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(2 out of 4 stars)
