The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen

I think I will review another movie that I like, but everyone else seems to hate. This is another comic book adaptation, released in 2003, “The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.”

First off, a little history: In 1999, comic writer Alan Moore thought up of an idea where 19^th century literary characters came together and made a team with superhero inclinations. This might be the most original idea in comic book history, but the film variation, like all the other comic book movies, can’t live up to the expectations that are put in a graphic novel.

The year is 1899 and Allan Quatermein (Sean Connery) has been chosen by the British government to lead a group of extraordinary men against a villain who calls himself the Phantom (Richard Roxburgh), whose diabolical plot is to get all of the countries against one another for World War III. In three days, the political leaders are supposed to meet in Venice to decide what move to make, and Quatermein’s group must be there to stop the Phantom from interfering. The other members come together to form the team, and the roll call is: Captain Nemo (Naseeruddin Shah), a scientist-vampire hunter who was bitten by Dracula named Mina Harker (Peta Wilson), a thief who stole the Invisible Man’s secrets named Rodney Skinner (Tony Curran), Dorian Grey (Stuart Townsend), US Secret Agent Tom Sawyer (Shane West), and Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde (Jason Fleyming).

Jason Zingale said in his review of this film, “"The League" is very much like "X-Men," but I really enjoy Moore's concept of using literary figures because it often is easier to relate to these characters and it's also exciting to consider these guys as "superheroes."” Unfortunately, there are a lot of problems in the duration of the film that do appear to be more significant than they are. Rumor has it that, because of the script’s deciding to not to follow the original material, Connery and director Stephen Norrington were frequently fighting, which is sad because filming this movie should have been very simple. Since I never read any of the comics, I’ll let Zingale explain it: “"The League" comic is brilliantly written and depicts each scene perfectly on every page, seemingly making it an easy-to-follow blueprint for any filmmaker to work from. And still, Norrington's aim was off.”

Like a lot of movies that were released during that summer, “The League” seemed to have lost their view on how awesome of a movie it would have been. Connery looks like he is bored with the role of Quatermein, and the actors that everyone doesn’t know, like Shah and Fleyming, have the more memorable characters. Even though “The League” may seem silly to many people, especially with it having convertible automobiles and automatic weapons in the late 1800s, it’s the originality and its fantasy-based source that allow for these things to happen. This isn’t a movie for everyone, but I still like it.

Even though I do admit this movie does have a lot of mistakes, I really enjoyed the action and all these characters from various novels in here. I liked that idea that what if all these novel characters came together and formed an awesome team? Like I said, I never read any of the comics, so I can’t say how well it followed it. Anyways, I would leave this up to you guys if you want to watch this movie or not. I won’t recommend it, but if you want to watch it, then go ahead, but like I said this isn’t for everyone.

Stay tuned tomorrow for the next entry in “Halloween Month.”