The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen

[DogStarMan]

http://ffmedia.ign.com/filmforce/image/league_promo_logo.jpg

It's coming. (http://www.lxgmovie.com/)...are you ready? :D

[cuddlyevil]

It can't come soon enough! This movie looks so cool!

[MissKitty]

I'm guessing this doesn't take place in Royston Vasey!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/olmedia/290000/images/_292749_league_of_gentlemen300.jpg

[Bronzetree]

Yet another comic book-based movie, and I think this one will be off the charts. Can't wait!

[cuddlyevil]

They didn't show Dorian Gray in the trailer (at least the one I saw) but they showed him in the commercial, god this is gonna be so kick ass...I'm glad they finally gave it a rating (pg-13)

[DogStarMan]

BBSpot Trailer review here (http://bbspot.com/News/2003/06/review_lxg.html)

[CtJester]

I dunno....

I saw the trailer again before Charlies Angels tonight....

I keep thinking 'The Avengers' or 'Mystery Men' with every viewing.

I want to love this film, and I may actually see it, but it's just Sean Connery and Steve Norrington (director of 'Blade') that have me going. Nothing else so far does anything for me strictly off the trailer.

-ct

[classicgrrl]

god help me I may actually have to go so this in *gaps* a movie theatre...

[jccalhoun]

the buzz on this in gossip circles is that this film is a train wreck. Connory and the director disagreed on nearly every single aspect of teh film. nearly coming to blows. the latest rumor is that conery went into the editing room and did reedits himself. I think that this will be a total mess. unfortunatley since it is from alan moore's comic and i'd love to seen this film suceed.

[Bronzetree]

Yes, Connery and the director had some pretty hairy squabbles during filming. There was also a flood that wiped out sets and pushed back production. Those involved in the making of the film say it was quite possibly the worst atmosphere, physically and emotionally, they've ever had to endure to make a film.

Not gonna stop me from seeing it, though.

[doctort13]

The latest issue of Sci Fi magazine has an interview with the director & the actor who plays (ugh) Tom Sawyer, every other sentence was name dropping Sean. I am a huge Alan Moore fan, so I must see how the comic looks on the big screen. I am excited to see Captain Nemo & the Nautilus.

[thelunarbee]

Originally posted by MissKitty
I'm guessing this doesn't take place in Royston Vasey!


Heh heh heh. Mustn't touch the precious things!

Ahem ... I am also excited to see Captain Nemo and the Nautilus... and if this movie is a train wreck, no matter, everyone likes to watch a good train wreck, right?

[cuddlyevil]

I read a review yesterday that it was a poor english student's worst nightmare, here are all the characters you bought cliff notes for in high school the night before your test--and you don't know why they're all there. It also said that it's a movie for folks who love the literature that the characters come from, but not so much that you won't care if the characters are butchered for the sake of an action flick. Tom Sawyer's in it too (wtf?), apparently it's a invisible man not the invisible man as the producers didn't think H.G. Well's invisible man was good for public consumption and Connery plays Alan Quatermain from King Solomon's Mines...for those who didn't know...

[IPrayForSound]

Originally posted by cuddlyevil
apparently it's a invisible man not the invisible man as the producers didn't think H.G. Well's invisible man was good for public consumption
So he's not gonna be knockin' up school girls in the middle of the night???

[cuddlyevil]

apparently not...

[Bronzetree]

Well, that's fucking retarded. Half the point of the character in the comics is that he IS that fucker that Wells wrote about. As for Tom Sawyer, I couldn't really grasp why he was added either, considering it's my understanding he's supposed to be part of the next LOEG comic mini, but hasn't appeared as a member yet.

Doesn't change the fact that I'm still amped to see this.

[cuddlyevil]

The review I read said that Tom Sawyer left Huck Finn behind to join the CIA or secret service--something along those lines. Not really sure what the hell it has to do with anything but it's looking more and more like I'm not gonna pay full price for this one, matinee maybe or even the 2 dollar theatres...

[classicgrrl]

that is really quite disappointing....

will probably still go see it....

[Katie]

I just think it's cool that Peta Wilson is in it!

She totally kicked ass in the La Femme Nikita TV series.

Go Nikita! :)

I did hear that it's gotten some bad reviews, though...

[CtJester]

Man, I don't even need cheese doodles to know to stay away from this one until its DVD release..... Roger Ebert did all the work for me.....


THE LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN / * (PG-13)

July 11, 2003

Allan Quatermain: Sean Connery
Captain Nemo: Naseeruddin Shah
Mina Harker: Peta Wilson
Rodney Skinner: Tony Curran
Dorian Gray: Stuart Townsend
Tom Sawyer: Shane West
Jekyll and Hyde: Jason Flemyng
M: Richard Roxburgh

Twentieth Century Fox presents a film directed by Stephen Norrington. Written by James Dale Robinson, based on comic books by Alan Moore and Kevin O'Neill. Running time: 110 minutes. Rated PG-13 (for fantasy violence, language and innuendo).

BY ROGER EBERT

"The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen" assembles a splendid team of heroes to battle a plan for world domination, and then, just when it seems about to become a real corker of an adventure movie, plunges into incomprehensible action, idiotic dialogue, inexplicable motivations, causes without effects, effects without causes, and general lunacy. What a mess.

And yet it all starts so swimmingly. An emissary from Britain arrives at a private club in Kenya, circa 1899, to invite the legendary adventurer Allan Quartermain (Sean Connery) to assist Her Majesty's Government in averting a world war. Villains have used a tank to break into the Bank of England and have caused great destruction in Germany, and each country is blaming the other. Quartermain at first refuses to help, but becomes annoyed when armored men with automatic rifles invade the club and try to kill everybody.

Quartermain and friends are able to dispatch them with some head-butting, a few rights to the jaw and a skewering on an animal horn, and then he goes to London to attend a meeting called by a spy master named--well, he's named M, of course.

Also assembled by M are such fabled figures as Captain Nemo (Naseeruddin Shah), who has retired from piracy; Mina Harker (Peta Wilson), who was involved in that messy Dracula business; Rodney Skinner (Tony Curran), who is the Invisible Man; Dorian Gray (Stuart Townsend), who, Quartermain observes, seems to be missing a picture; Tom Sawyer (Shane West), who works as an agent for the U.S. government, and Dr. Henry Jekyll (Jason Flemyng), whose alter ego is Mr. Hyde.

These team members have skills undreamed of by the authors who created them. We are not too surprised to discover that Mina Harker is an immortal vampire, since she had those puncture wounds in her throat the last time we saw her, but I wonder if Oscar Wilde knew that Dorian Gray was also immortal and cannot die (or be killed!) as long as he doesn't see his portrait; at one point, an enemy operative perforates him with bullets and he comes up smiling. Robert Louis Stevenson's Mr. Hyde was about the same size as Dr. Jekyll, but here Hyde expands into a creature scarcely smaller than the Hulk, and gets his pants from the same tailor, since they expand right along with him while his shirt is torn to shreds. Hyde looks uncannily like the WWE version of Fat Bastard.

Now listen carefully. M informs them that the leaders of Europe are going to meet in Venice and that the mysterious villains will blow up the city to start a world war. The League must stop them. When is the meeting? In three days, M says. Impossible to get there in time, Quartermain says, apparently in ignorance of railroads. Nemo volunteers his submarine, the Nautilus, which is about 10 stories high and as long as an aircraft carrier, and which we soon see cruising the canals of Venice.

It's hard enough for gondolas to negotiate the inner canals of Venice, let alone a sub the size of an ocean liner, but no problem; "The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen" either knows absolutely nothing about Venice, or (more likely) trusts that its audience does not. At one point, the towering Nautilus sails under the tiny Bridge of Sighs and only scrapes it a little. In no time at all there is an action scene involving Nemo's newfangled automobile, which races meaninglessly down streets that do not exist, because there are no streets in Venice and you can't go much more than a block before running into a bridge or a canal. Maybe the filmmakers did their research at the Venetian Hotel in Venice, where Connery arrived by gondola for the movie's premiere.

Bombs begin to explode Venice. It is Carnival time, and Piazza San Marco is jammed with merry-makers as the Basilica explodes and topples into ruin. Later, there is a scene of this same crowd engaged in light-hearted chatter, as if they have not noticed that half of Venice is missing. Dozens of other buildings sink into the lagoon, which does not prevent Quartermain from exalting, "Venice still stands!"

Now back to that speeding car. Its driver, Tom Sawyer, has been sent off on an urgent mission. When he finds something--an underwater bomb, I think, although that would be hard to spot from a speeding car--he's supposed to fire off a flare, after which I don't know what's supposed to happen. As the car hurtles down the non-existent streets of Venice, enemy operatives stand shoulder-to-shoulder on the rooftops and fire at it with machineguns, leading us to hypothesize an enemy meeting at which the leader says, "Just in case they should arrive by submarine with a fast car which hasn't been invented yet, I want thousands of men to line the rooftops and fire at it, without hitting anything, of course."

Later, there is a sinister encounter in a Venetian graveyard, among the crumbling headstones. But hold on: Venice of all cities doesn't have graves because the occupants would be underwater. Like New Orleans, another city with a ground-water problem, Venetians find it prudent to bury their dead in above-ground crypts.

But never mind. The action now moves to the frozen lakes of Mongolia, where the enemy leader (whose identity I would not dream of revealing) has constructed a gigantic factory palace to manufacture robot soldiers, apparently an early model of the clones they were manufacturing in "Attack" of the same. This palace was presumably constructed recently at great expense (it's a bitch getting construction materials through those frozen lakes). And yet it includes vast neglected and forgotten rooms.

I don't really mind the movie's lack of believability. Well, I mind a little; to assume audiences will believe cars racing through Venice is as insulting as giving them a gondola chase down the White House lawn. What I do mind is that the movie plays like a big wind came along and blew away the script and they ran down the street after it and grabbed a few pages and shot those. Since Oscar Wilde contributed Dorian Gray to the movie, it may be appropriate to end with his dying words: "Either that wallpaper goes, or I do."

Copyright © Chicago Sun-Times Inc.

-ct 'at least tomorrow I can write about the immensely fun, albiet long, Pirates Of The Carribean' jester

[Bronzetree]

I'm still not swayed. Fuck Roger Ebert.

Oh, and having read the comics, I know who M is. Have to admit, it was pretty neat to discover his identity.

[drworm8]

This seems like the first review I've ever read from Ebert that didn't have a "thumbs up" slogan.

He's usually quite the optomist.:)

[thelunarbee]

Originally posted by Bronzetree
I'm still not swayed. Fuck Roger Ebert.

Oh, and having read the comics, I know who M is. Have to admit, it was pretty neat to discover his identity.

Ditto.
I recently read the comics (volume 1 anyway) and I was kicking myself for not figuring out who M was on my own. Very cool shit!
And why the hell is Ebert acting like he ever read a damn book?

[doctort13]

My wife and I saw LXG last night at the Danbarry Cinema (http://www.danbarry.com) in Western Hills. Yes, it's worth $7.00, a small popcorn & a large Sprite.

We had fun. Movies, especially those based on comics, are meant to do one thing...entertain the viewer. Why do "the critics" need all the movies that they review to mean something. What is wrong with B-movies? I happen to LOVE B-movies more than "serious cinema". I watch them to escape and be entertained.

LXG's poor reviews remind me of what "the critics" wrote about one of my ALL TIME favourite films, The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai (1984). They just didn't "get" it. What's there to "get"? It's a steampunk superhero movie. Nothing more, nothing less. I predict that this will join "Buckaroo" among the ranks of "critically misunderstood" cult films.

If you enjoy fast moving, comic inspired action flicks, go see LXG. I feel that one doesn't need to have read the Alan Moore comics to understand the plot. There was a couple sitting in front of us who were in their early 50's, and they were really getting into the film. I may be wrong, but I doubt that they read the comic books.

When ever Roger Ebert gives a "thumbs down" I hope he remembers the script that he is credited with writing. (http://us.imdb.com/Title?0065466) I think that his thumb is stuck up his ass.

[Ol-One-Eye]

Man . . . I have read 3 reviews of this movie and they are ripping this thing to shreds. I think it was the Enquire or Post who gave it a 1/2 of a star. Whoa!!! I think I'll pass on this one. Looks like I'll catch it on H.B.O. in a year or so.

[doctort13]

Comics2Film:
review (http://www.comicbookresources.com/news/newsitem.cgi?id=2473)

Behind the scenes
peek (http://filmforce.ign.com/lxg/articles/428/428034p1.html?fromint=1)

I think I'll go see it again!

[DogStarMan]

Originally posted by doctort13
My wife and I saw LXG last night at the Danbarry Cinema (http://www.danbarry.com) in Western Hills. Yes, it's worth $7.00, a small popcorn & a large Sprite.
For a minute, my confidence in this film was wavering, but you brought me back with a good review. I trust your opinions on this stuff. I guess we'll be seeing it this weekend.

[thelunarbee]

I went to see LXG last night with 3 of my brothers. My brother who complains about everything complained about everything. The rest of us liked it.
Pretty much every review I read bitched about Dorian Gray, which, after seeing the movie, it seemed these complaints were heavily misguided. Gray's portrayal was near perfect, in my opinion. I recently read Oscar Wilde's novel and I see few points to complain about. Yeah, he may not have looked anything like Wilde's description of the character, but the mannerisms were spot on. And what of the "rewrite" that would leave Wilde spinning in his grave? Such is the way with storytelling, like the telephone game, "reimagining" an existing story, making it more fantastical. Instead of these characters existing in their original forms, the author takes them and makes them his own.

A lot of people complained about the lack of transition between scenes. It wasn't any more jerky than an episode of Alias (and by far more entertaining than that). This leads me to believe that this movie would make more sense as a television show, as it is lends itself more to episodic fiction than to a grandiose tale.

A final note for now: The one woman in the league, Mina Harker, was one of the strongest female characters I have seen in a movie in a long time. She easily held her own in the boy's club.

[Milkman Dan]

I'm getting so sick of reviews on everything, especially since the new Matrix movie came out, I just can't trust anyone any more.

I think this was a good flick because it was just a very typical super hero plot. Evil guy wants to rule the world with evil ways, and a big twist in the middle on who it is! Horrible lines! Troubled heroes! I rolled around in it.

[Katie]

Having not read the (ahem) graphic novel and going into the movie not exactly knowing the plot, I have to say I rather enjoyed it. Yeah, it's a typical superhero plot, but the concept of the literary characters is a pretty cool one. Who cares what the damn Cliff notes say? They're for cheaters anyway. :)

My comic-reading boyfriend remarked that the only character that wasn't in the graphic novel was Sawyer (Tom Sawyer). But if you haven't read it, you'd never know. My guess is that they had to stick an American in it in order to keep Americans happy (since we can't have a British movie contain all British actors, e.g., Bridget Jones' Diary, High Fidelity, if it's going to be released in the U.S.).

These movies aren't supposed to be strong in dialogue and plot - but the effects were pretty damn cool and the action was there. I heard that the Jeckyll character even looked like the one in the graphic novel - that's not so bad, eh?

Movie critics are supposed to hate movies like this.

And this is coming from a grrl! :)

[Katie]

Originally posted by thelunarbee
A final note for now: The one woman in the league, Mina Harker, was one of the strongest female characters I have seen in a movie in a long time. She easily held her own in the boy's club.

That's 'cause it was Nikita! I'm tellin' ya - that girl kicks ass!:)

[kcneon]

Originally posted by Katie


That's 'cause it was Nikita! I'm tellin' ya - that girl kicks ass!:) Nikita would kick that Alias chick in a heartbeat! ;)

[Katie]

Originally posted by kcneon
Nikita would kick that Alias chick in a heartbeat! ;)

Totally! Plus, Nikita doesn't have man-boobs! :) (Jennifer Garner should NOT wear strapless dresses.)

I watched Daredevil the day after I saw LXG, and let me say that it was pretty damn lame...even for a superhero movie!

[Juliana]

It's at the Danbarry Dollar Saver in Eastgate now, so it'll probably make the dollar saver rounds in the next few weeks.

I thought it was really good. Like an action movie for kinda smart people.

[doctort13]

"kinda smart" ;)

[CtJester]

Originally posted by doctort13
"kinda smart" ;)

Like 'Kinda Better Than Ezra'.

:D