The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen DVD > Reviews > What's so extraordinary about this bunch?

Author's product rating:   

Did you enjoy it?	Disliked it
Story	Very weak
Characters / Performances	Weak
Special Effects	Unmemorable
Soundtrack	Unmemorable

Advantages:	Loved the idea of the characters !
Disadvantages:	Bad plot, poor acting !

Recommend to potential buyers:

no

Full review

Hello Ciao reviewers! Hope your well and ready for another film review from me! Today I'm going to review a film which I have to say, disappointed me when I watched, despite the fact that the trailers looked quite good!

Have you ever noticed how they put all the good stuff into the trailers, so you expect it to be absolutely fantastic and then sometimes it's just not! Well i'm afraid to say that The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen falls under this heading.

In the ususal style, here are some quotes from a couple of critics...

"The writing is terrible. There is no tension, no mystery, no excitement, no adventure."
Liz Braun, JAM! MOVIES

"An extraordinary mess."
Linda Cook, QUAD CITY TIMES (DAVENPORT, IA)

"The more you think about the film, the more it falls to pieces. It's riddled with logistical and continuity errors that keep the audience continually uttering 'Huh?'"
Rich Cline, SHADOWS ON THE WALL

Well that's the opinion of the critics folks, which should at least give you some idea of what this film is like. Personally I couldn't agree more with these views, especially the last one!

Okay so here is the boring techie stuff I have to do.

***TECHIE STUFF***

The DVD is a 2 disc set

It has a 12 certificate. Nothing too bad on this film, just watch out for the vampire! A little violence and some action scenes that smaller children may find disturbing.

This film has a running time of 1 hour and 50 minutes and comes in a widescreen edition of the DVD.

Comes under the Action/Adventure/Fantasy genre with a couple of immortal beings and otherwise superheros.

Released by 20th Century Fox (What in heaven's name were they thinking!?!?!)

I usually like to buy my films and DVD's from amazon.co.uk as they are slightly cheaper. My editon cost me £8.97 and I'm going to assume that it can be bought or at least ordered from some of the major music retail shops like HMV.

***DVD SPECIAL FEATURES***

My edition came as a 2 disc set. One has the movie on it where you can select the scenes. The other disc has the following features:

Audio Commentary By Producers Don Murphy And Trevor Albert And Actors Jason Flemyng Tony Curan And Shane West
Audio Commentary By Jacqueline West John
Sullivan And Matthew Gratzer

Matters Of Pre Visualisation

Stills Gallery

Assembling The League

Deleted Scenes

Extended Scenes

Behind The Fantasy

European Premieres

2 Trailers

12 TV Spots

Posters

Main Language: English

Hearing Impaired: English

If I was thruthful, I was so disappointed with the film, I haven't really bothered to look at the extra features. Some I think are pretty self explanatory, but I will look at them at some stage and give an explanation of what they are! Promise!!

***ACTORS AND ACTRESSES***

Sean Connery
Naseeruddin Shah
Peta Wilson
Tony Curran
Stuart Townsend
Shane West
Jason Flemyng
Richard Roxburgh

***CHARACTERS***

All of these characters, except for the last one are fictional characters, set in Victorian times. This was probably my favourite part of the film, seeing all of these Victorian characters coming to life.

Allan Quatermain
Played by actor Sean Connery. Quatermain is the leading guy in the film. An expert in shooting, Quartermain can shoot anything up to 900 yards away. His aim is practically perfect. Quartermain holds a painful past in this movie and as an historical figure has been the subject of many books by H. Rider Haggard. Quartermain was once a firm supporter of the British Empire but Allan has changed as you find out in the plot.

Captain Nemo
Played by actor Naseeruddin Shah. Captain Nemo built the Nautilus: The Sword of the Ocean. The most popular book that holds Captain Nemo's name within it's pages is 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea. Captain nemo was once a warrior but wanted to explore the ocean. Nemo has greath strength and agility in a fight and is not to be underestimated.

Mina Harker
Played by actress Peta Wilson. Mina was a the husband of Jonathan Harker, a british scientist like herself. Mina, her husband and Van Helsing tried to destroy Dracula but Mina was bitten by him and became a vampire herself. A very traditional woman to begin with, Mina is not afraid to show her dark side when she is threatened.

Rodney Skinner
Played by actor Tony Curran. Rodney Skinner is a well known pickpocket. But Skinner, as he is known, stole a formula to make himself invisible. Unfortunately he didn't think to steal an antidote to make himself visible and is now stuck that way. He joins the League if only in the hopes of finding an antidote. He may be invisible, but that does not stop him being sneaky and underhanded.

Dorian Gray
Played by actor Stuart Townsend. Possibly my favourite character for his backround and not for the actor. Dorian was orphaned when he was a small boy. After finding out that he was in fact an heir to a fortune, Dorian asked the most famous painter in the world to do a portrait of himself. Fearing I guess what we all fear...getting old, Dorian said that he would sell his soul to never age a day. His wish was granted by the Devil. But the Devil made a deal with him. The Devil cast a spell on Dorian's portrait so that the painting would age instead of him. Dorian himself would not grow one day older. The Devil said that if Dorian was to look upon his painting, the spell would be reversed and the Devil would get his soul for eternity. Dorian agreed to the deal and never aged and was an immortal. Dorian is a sly, slick haired individual with more than one secret up his sleeve. A strong fighter, Dorian is not to be messed with as you can't harm him!

Tom Sawyer
Played by actor Shane West. Sawyer is I guess a rookie. A secret agent for the American Secret Service, Tom is a fly-by-the-seat-of-his-pants kinda guy, shooting at anything and everything. He immediately warms to Mina and he has no special abilities like the others. His desire to help the league is strong and Quartermain takes him under his wing. Although probably the youngest of the League, Tom can certainly take care of himself.

Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde
Played by actor Jason Flemyng. Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde.....we all know the score. Dr Jekyll was a chemist and invented a formula to bring out his evil side: Mr Hyde. Ten times stronger and bigger, Hyde is very useful in a fight. A war wages inside of Jekyll as he struggles to contain Hyde. But maybe Hyde just wants a chance to live instead of being supressed. Jekyll is a kind man, always there to lend a hand and he knows that if his formula ever got out, the consequences would be unfathomable.

'M'
Played by actor Richard Roxburgh. M is the recruiter of the League itself and is a highly suspicious character to be sure. I can't tell you to much about him yet...so you'll have to read the plot now!

***PLOT***

Set in victorian times, the film begins with what looks like an army tanker crashing through the streets of London. Eventually, the tanker smashes its way into a library and you see some plans are stolen from a vault in the library.

Cut to Afirca, Kenya to be more exact. Home of the legendary Allan Quatermain. Allan is approached by a man from the government to come to london to aide the British Empire in it's defeat of it's deadliest enemy yet. Given the situation between the great powers in the world, Allan reluctantly agrees to take the assignment and goes to London to learn more.

There Allan meets 'M', the recruiter, who tells him that the British Empire needs him to lead a team of 'Extraordinary Gentlemen' to combat a threat from the 'Phantom'. The Phantom wishes to sabotage a conference of world leaders and basically spark off a world war. Realising that he doesn't have much of a choice, Allan must find the remaining members of the league and get them to the conference which is to be held in Venice in 3 or 4 days time to stop the attack.

Allan meets and recruits Mina Harker, Rodney Skinner and Captain Nemo, but he still has to find Dorian Gray and Jekyll/Hyde. What about Sawyer I hear you cry? You'll find out where he comes in in a minute. After Allan and the others visit Dorian, he is somewhat reluctant to join the league and after an attack by the Phantom, Sawyer shows up to save the day. So that's them recruited, now Allan must track down Jekyll and Hyde in Paris.

After some persuading, Jekyll/Hyde is convinced to help the League on the condition that he can go home to England. So that's the league sorted, it's off to Venice on Captain Nemo's ship: The Nautilus.

Along the way to Venice, they find out that the plans that were stolen at the start of the film from the library, were stolen by the Phantom and they are plans of a building were the conference will be held and subsequently blown to bits.

When they arrive in Venice the attack has already started, and after managing to thwart it, they realise that they have a spy amidst their ranks, someone who set them up to go to Venice to distract them from something else. That spy is Dorian. He reveals that the man that recruited them....M....is actually the Phantom. The league also learns that M is trying steal the leagues secrets.....i.e invisibility, the designs for Nautilus, vampire blood, Jekyll's formula....all to create a race of creatures with superhuman powers like the league. M intends to harness their secrets and then sell them to the highest bidder.

Without realising it Dorian has had access to all of them and managed to gain samples of all these abilities.

Allan and the league must now go on another mission to stop Dorian and M from marketing their abilities. If anyone got hold of Mina's vamperic blood, Jekyll's formula, Nemo's science or Skinner's invisibility the world would plunge into chaos!

***MY PERSONAL OPINION***

The story was a little hard to understand, and for me, it took a while for me to get what was going on. I loved the characters in this film and the books that the writers have brought them out of. The stories behind some of the characters are fascinating to me and I would love to get my hands on some of the books with them in.
In the film however, the acting was of a poor standard and non-convincing. Not exactly oscar winning performances but then again it doesn't help when the actors and actresses don't seem to fit their roles to well.

I think the fact that I would rather read the books that these characters are in, rather than watch this film, doesn't really say a lot about it! As far as I can tell, the reason that this film flopped at the box office was because it came out at the same time as films such as Lord Of The Rings. Which would you prefer to watch? :)

The characters, admittedly, have a couple of flaws too. Being a 12 rated film, I guess the writers and directors couldn't really go into depth about what the characters are really like. Hyde looks like a massive normal coloured version of the Incredible Hulk, Sawyer looks like he just came out of his kindergarden years and for a vampire, Mina doesn't sound or look anything as dark as she is supposed to.

I was surprised at the turn the film took when the alternate agenda was revealed. But then again I also looked at how far into the film I was and thought: "Oh come on, the story can't finish after an hour! There has to be something else going on!" In that sense, it made the film rather predictable. The plot just didn't appeal to me and I can honestly say that the only good thing about this movie was the characters themselves and their history....NOT THE ACTORS AND ACTRESSES!!!

Normally I would include quotes from the characters in the film, but I was so unimpressed by the dialogue spoken, that I just didn't see the point!

You may enjoy this film, it's up to you, but I know that I wouldn't watch again in a hurry!

The decision of course is yours!

Happy trails kids!

Leila :)