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Review: The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen

So yes, I did indeed see The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen last night, and it did indeed suck. What a shame.

The biggest problem with the movie is a fundamental one: they tried to make it into a mass-market property, which it's not. Kids will be turned off by the fact that they've never heard of these characters, and adults won't be thrilled at the fact that the edge has been taken away.

But that's not the only problem here, not by a long shot. The two additions to the team, Tom Sawyer and Dorian Gray, are pointless and disappointing respectively. Sawyer is there for absolutely no reason whatsoever. And not only that, but they don't even attempt to give him a reason for being there. He just shows up, says he's from the CIA, and that's the end of it. There isn't a single reference to anything from his past. And how could there be? He's Tom freaking' Sawyer for god's sake...he has no reason for being there!

Dorian Gray fares a little better, and after a generally positive introduction I had hoped he would turn out to be a decent character. Sadly, they take him in the wrong direction, and a good opportunity was lost. Stuart Townsend plays him well, although he would have benefitted from reading a bit more Oscar Wilde to really get that upper class sense of superiority down. As it is, he only comes across as a faintly affeminate metrosexual.

My favorite character from the comics was Captain Nemo, and he's not too bad here. What is pretty horrible however is what they did to the Nautilus, which was changed from the octopus-like contraption from the comics into a CGI battleship. I'm pretty sure I saw an early photo of an actual built ship like the one in the comics, which was destroyed during the floods that plagued the production. Oh well.

The character revelation about the bad guy from the comics is here as well, only here it makes absolutely no sense. In the comics we see how the League figured out who this person is...in the movie, Allan Quatermain merely says, "or should I say...(character name)?" Ha HAH! Wait. We have no idea how he came to this conclusion, and it's never addressed, so younger viewers who've never read the books from which this character came from will have absolutely no idea why that name is significant.

There are lots of other problems, of course. The screenplay is a jumbled mess with a totally nonsensical plot, the direction borders on amateur-league at times, some of the dialogue is groan-worthy in the extreme, and Mr. Hyde looks like he was pulled straight out of SiN.

And yes, there really is a car chase in Venice. A car chase. In Venice. Which has no streets. One has to wonder who the genius was who came up with that one. Oh, and Mina Harker, who in the movie is a full-fledged vampire, stands outside in sunlight on two occasions. And it's not clear if this is done to flaunt the conventional vampire rules or simply because they're hoping we don't notice. Yeesh.

As I watched TLoEG, I tried my best to figure out why I liked director Stephen Norrington's Blade but not this movie. And I think the clear difference between the two is that with Blade, he intentionally went over-the-top. With TLoEG, he was forced to keep a PG-13 rating, and in the process lost whatever leeway he could have had. I don't regret going to see this flick, I mean, there are worse ways to spend 110 minutes. But the real tragedy here is lost potential. If a sequel ever gets made (which is doubtful, but hey you never know) they should get back to what makes the comics so superior in every way to this movie and help us forget about this mess.

Posted by jason at July 15, 2003 11:42 AM | TrackBack | Read more: Movies , Reviews