♥♥Gone to pastures new. Thanks to all of you. You are a lovely crowd, but time does not ...
♥♥Gone to pastures new. Thanks to all of you. You are a lovely crowd, but time does not permit me to do the site justice any more♥♥
Member since:01.08.2003
Reviews:633
Members who trust:492
I feel very strongly about writing this review, since I feel totally conned. I saw this film on sale and I thought that if Sean Connery is in it, then it is bound to have merit because my trust in him as an actor is such that his ability is not in question. However, after having seen the film, his choice of rolls is a little questionable to say the least.
THE STORY
Now, I believe as a writer that this could have been made into a really good story had the characters from history been better chosen. The writer, Alan Moore, chose people out of history that really would not have made a lot of difference to the situation that they were faced with and I believe that a more imaginative writer would have chosen characters which were more believeable. The characters he chose were :
Allan Quatermain - supposed to be the worlds greatest adventurer played by Sean Connery.
Captain Nemo - He is the captain of the Nautilus submarine and played by Naseerudin Shah. Here, this was possibly the most convincing of the characters.
The Invisible Man played unconvincingly by a Cockney Tony Curran
Dr. Jeckyll/Mr. Hyde played by Jason Flemying and mundanely to say the least.
A Vampiress called Nina Harker who has a husky voice and spends a lot of time acting in a ladylike manner and then tries to surprise people with her vampire ways.
Lastly and here I would say leastly Dorian Gray played by Stuart Townsend, although I am not sure what a character of Oscar Wilde is doing in a world saving film, as his character portrayed by Oscar Wilde would certainly not lend itself convincingly to a roll like this !!
THE FILM
Based on comic book mentality, the film was a total disappointment. Okay I did not expect it to be completely believeable, but with the special effects and technological capabilities of film makers, I expected more than I got, which was a poor story line.
You are lead to believe that this league of gentlemen specially chosen for a mission of this magnitude (i.e. to save the world from the baddies who were intent to sabotage a meeting of great leaders in Venice. Then, to add to the story because I believe they ran out of ideas, the league of extraordinary gentlemen hook up with an American Secret service agent (played by Shane West), and I found myself thinking of the irony of going to all the trouble to get these amazing (tongue in cheek) people together to save the world, and then letting an American of little significance join the gang at the drop of a hat. Are we supposed to believe this rubbish ?
The Phantom who is the baddy is supposedly going to destroy Vennice by playing explosives under certain buildings in order to create a domino effect which really did not come off at all. The gang have 9 hours in which to achieve their aims which would be unrealistic under any circumstances, but totally unbelieveable in the film and I noticed that my yawning started after the first 30 minutes.
Its duration : 110 Minutes of sheer drivel. Rating : Parent Guided.
CONCLUSION
If I were to look at this film and judge it in any way, I would say that there are clever moments. I loved the way that the invisible man was shown, and the clever effects that were used to create his character. Sure, the plot is based in Victorian England, but did they have to use such a bad voice for him ??
Sean Connery, well I was disappointed with him. He showed exceptionally bad judgement taking this role in the first place, and his character was unconvincing.
As for the other characters, I am insulted being a great Oscar Wilde fan that they should be allowed to take a character from a classic book and butcher him in such a way.
I thought it would be a super film, but I was sadly wrong. Disappointing to the last.
Production Year: 1977 - Action/Adventure - Director: Clint Eastwood - Original Language: English - Classification: 18 years and over - Starring:Clint Eastwood, Sondra Locke, Pat Hingle, William Prince, Bill McKinney
Production Year: 1964 - Action/Adventure - Director: Cyril Endfield - Original Language: English - Classification: Parental Guidance - Starring:Stanley Baker, Jack Hawkins, Ulla Jacobsson, James Booth, Michael Caine, Nigel Green
Production Year: 2002 - Action/Adventure - Director: Vincenzo Natali - Original Language: English - Classification: 15 years and over - Starring:Lucy Liu, David Hewlett, Anne Marie Scheffler, Joseph Scoren, Matthew Sharp, Jeremy Northam
I've yet to hear anyone give this film a good review. What saddens me more than anything is that the film is based upon a rather good comic book that I've thoroughly enjoyed reading recently. In the comic book Quatermain is a desperate opium adict, there is no Dorian Grey, or Horror of horrors any Americans, Nemo is a Colonial hating hindu and so on. The characters whilst fantastical are believable and the whole Victorian, Gothic world with a twist works really well. I strongly doubt that Alan Moore had anything to do with the writting of the script for this film as from what I've seen of the trailers it looks like your typical Hollywood nonsense. What usually happens is some Exec suddenly goes where's the American? and they slot one in and add a few car chases. If you ever get the chance check out the comic book as it is far superior. Cheers
jonathanb 21.04.2004 12:13
I haven't seen the film but thought Sean Connery sounded almost embarrassed talking about it on Parkinson. Now I know why.
If it's any consolation, I have also fallen victim to "Sean Connery's in it so it must be good" syndrome - did you ever see Highlander 2?
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Apr 19th, 2004
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