I will begin the review with brutal honesty, if this film were a bird it would be a massively expensive wrapped turkey, if it were a football team it would be Newcastle United (no offence to Toon fans) and if it were a comic book it would be a million times better than this....oh it was!!
The League of Extraordinary Gentleman is based on Alan Moore's brilliantly imaginative graphic novel of the same name, the premise of the film should lend itself brilliantly to the big screen.
In 1899, in an alternate universe, the Fantom is trying to start a World War by manipulating World powers into believing others are plotting and acting against them causing an air of fear and oppression, led by the heroic Alan Quatermain a team of literary hero's of the era must stop the Fantom and save the world, putting aside their own rivalries and idiocyncracies in the process.
The film follows Alan Quatermain, Captain Nemo, Mina Harker, The Invisible Man, Dorian Gray, Dr Jekyl and Mr Hyde and Tom Sawyer as they attempt to stop the evil Fantom. Unfortunately whilst the graphic novel uses these characters to their fullest and the literary references
and humour flow from the page, for some reason this has been jazzed up and dumbed down. It is big budget but lacking any real narrative, the characterisations are bland and boring with not one character being given any depth, the acting is horrendous, Connery shows his limitations to the fullest, whilst we have a variety of supporting actors playing leads to varyingly weak levels.
The film lacks any substance, apparently the comic book was eschewed for a more cinematic experience, boy did they get that wrong, each character is given too much story but not enough chance to build a relationship with the audience, the cgi for Mr Hyde makes the incredible Hulk look like a Studio Ghibli animation it is so unsubtle and ridiculous, some of the characters are boring, some are downright irritating, the story seems to me to be more a series of set pieces than the intelligently plotted, funny, thought provoking thing it was on paper.
This film cost a lot of money and embarrassingly you watch in awe as this is the equivalent of Mr Obama's comments about putting lipstick on a pig, had they thrown another £100m at this film it still would have looked like a dark, macabre Alan Smithee film rather than an adaptation of a hugely enjoyable and influential comic book.
As you may have guessed I thought this film was awful, I found the acting stifled and at times almost amateurish, the director may have been ill or had a very weak voice as there isn't any, the CGI looks like a workgroup of 3 year old's were asked what looked scary and the story appears to have been rewritten by taking the original and just smashing it to pieces and picking up the broken shell of a good story.
Cast:
Sean Connery ... Allan Quatermain Naseeruddin Shah Captain Nemo Peta Wilson ... Mina Harker Tony Curran ... Rodney Skinner (The Invisible Man) Stuart Townsend Dorian Gray Shane West ... Tom Sawyer Jason Flemyng Dr. Henry Jekyll / Edward Hyde Richard Roxburgh M Max Ryan ... Dante Tom Goodman-Hill Sanderson Reed David Hemmings Nigel Terry O'Neill ... Ishmael Rudolf Pellar ... Draper Robert Willox ... Constable Dunning Robert Orr ... Running
If you wanted to buy this film, then you're a brave person, unfortunately for me we own the special edition, which was described by Jonathon Ross in 2003 as 'Great fun....a splendid romp', just goes to show his judgement has been hit and miss for a long time. This film is pretty rubbish, the Daily Express describes the film as having 'stunning special effects', I would presume they had interviews with the stars after their review or that their reviewer was a grape eating squirrel.
The DVD is available in all good dvd stores, it's £4.28 at Amazon and includes the following 'Special Features':
- Audio Commentary by the costume designer and effects supervisor (Really if I were them I would try to keep my head down and not show off!).
- Audio Commentary by the Producer and actors Jason Flemying, Tony Curran and Shane West (Please note apparently Connery and the Director had a bout of fisticuffs due to artistic differences, which is perhaps why neither took part in this). - Scene Access - Interactive menus - Matters of Pre-Visualisation (Oh Dear!) - Stills Gallery - Assembling the League Featurette - 17 deleted and extended scenes (Tells you all you need to know about how unsure they were about the final version!) - Behind the Fantasy Featurette - 4 European Trailers (This one's for all you masochists out there!) - Television Spots - Posters
This review has also been posted on Dooyoo under the same monicker
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The heroes of 1899 are brought to life with the help of some expensive special effects ... more
inThe League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. From the pages of Victorian literature come Captain Nemo, Dr Jekyll (and his alter ego Mr Hyde), Dorian Gray, Tom Sawyer, th...
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The heroes of 1899 are brought to life with the help of some expensive special effects ... more
inThe League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. From the pages of Victorian literature come Captain Nemo, Dr Jekyll (and his alter ego Mr Hyde), Dorian Gray, Tom Sawyer, th...
Postage & Packaging: £1.21 Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days...
The heroes of 1899 are brought to life with the help of some expensive special effects ... more
inThe League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. From the pages of Victorian literature come Captain Nemo, Dr Jekyll (and his alter ego Mr Hyde), Dorian Gray, Tom Sawyer, th...
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![The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen - 2 disc Special Edition [DVD] [2003]](http://picnicb.ciao.com/uk/78524177.jpg "The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen - 2 disc Special Edition [DVD] [2003]")
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Sep 28th, 2009
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