League of Extraordinary Gentlemen review

[Obi-Wan Pinobi]

The movie is based on the comic book of the same name. Here's the premise: the British government in 1899 calls together 7 characters from 19th century literature to save the world. Allan Quartermain, Captain Nemo, Dr. Jekyll and his alter ego Mr. Hyde, the Invisible Man, Mina Harker from Dracula, Dorain Gray, and Tom Sawyer.

I've pretty much given up on movies like this being 100% faithful to the original material. There are quite a few changes between the comic and the movie, so if anyone goes looking for the book after seeing the movie, you've been warned.

Overall, I'd have to give this movie a 1.5 on my rating scale (see below). Some of the dialogue was stilted and could have been better. There were a couple of twists and turns that did end up keeping the movie from being an utter disappointment.

Gray and Sawyer don't appear in the comic but I can understand why they were included in the movie. Sawyer becomes almost a surrogate son/younger version of Quatermain. I won't go into Gray very much to avoid spoiling the movie for anyone but he had some of the best performances of the bunch, with the Jekyll/Hyde performance a close second.

----------------------------------
My movie rating system:

3 -- FANTASTIC!! I will be itching to buy the special edition DVD on the day of release

2 -- Very Good! I will want this on DVD, maybe the special edition depending on the extras, but not necessarily on the day of release.

1 -- Decent. I'll want this on DVD, but I could wait for a used copy from Blockbuster.

0 -- Eh. Could've been better, but I've seen worse. Might want the DVD but could live without it.

-1 -- Well, there's 2 or more hours down the drain.

-2 -- I fell asleep during parts (or wish I had)

-3 -- I walked out (or wish I had)

 

[Cindy B]

You were more generous with review than my local paper (Philadellphia Inquirer)

Out of a four star rating, they gaving it a half star.. and nothing else.

That is the lowest rating you can get.. in comparision Finding Nemo got three stars, Charlies Angels got two or a one and a half...

 

[Desiree]

You're also more generous than I was with it!

I HATED it!!!!! I got in for free and I still wanted my money back.

The plot was poor, the screenwriting was predictable, the character development was not very good IMO and the CGI was TERRIBLE!!!

Sean Connery should be embarrassed that his name was attached to this film!

'Course I had just seen Pirates before I went to see LXG. So I'm a little biased.

One more point to add, this had so much potential to be a really great movie. Needless to say, I'm very disappointed as to how it turned out.

 

[Rajah]

Thanks for saving me some money. I'm sorry to hear it's getting really poor reviews. I thought it looked like fun.

 

[LadyAurora]

That's too bad, I thought it was such a great idea for a movie. I guess I'll wait for the DVD. Thanks for the reviews!

 

[SuiteDisney]

I'm sure I'll see it even with the poor reviews. I'd watch (and especially listen to) Sean Connery read the phone book!

 

[lisajl]

I'd watch (and especially listen to) Sean Connery read the phone book
Originally posted by Suite Disney




You know what? So would I!!!!

I love that man!

But, I guess we will wait until it comes out on Video next month! LOL! My Dh and I really wanted to see it, too. I guess we'll go see Johnny...I mean POTC again...

Lisa

 

[delikado]

I was really, REALLY looking forward to this movie, and sadly, I was a bit disappointed when I saw it yesterday... I didn't think it was HORRIBLE by any means (I've seen much worse, I assure you), but I guess I was hoping for more than what I got

I guess the thing that annoyed me the most was the "awkward" (for lack of a better word) way the writers went about explaining all the characters' origins/backgrounds. Granted, not everyone is going to know who all of these people are, but I felt like I was getting dumbed-down explanations. It all just took too long, in my opinion, and left little time for action! (On a side note, The Hollywood Reporter's review of LXG said, "[Quatermain] is to recruit and lead a League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, which includes no gentlemen and one questionable lady. These are ... most improbably, Dorian Gray (Stuart Townsend), Oscar Wilde's vile yet ageless wonder. Do the filmmakers really believe the under-25 crowd knows the works of Wilde?" Um, excuse me, I'm 23, and I know who Dorian Gray is, thank you very much.)

I was also disappointed in the character development, but again, this is probably due to the fact that the writers spent too much time doing other things... I felt that Mina Harker was (unfairly) ignored and Agent Sawyer was mostly unnecessary, if not miscast. However, I'll agree with Obi-Wan's comments regarding Dorian Gray and Dr. Jekkyl's great perfomances.

I didn't mean for this to turn into a negative review, because when it comes down to it, I enjoyed watching this movie. I usually prefer more art-house type films, but I'm also a sucker for summer action blockbusters I'm probably the only person who's thinking this, but I'm really hoping that this movie makes enough money to encourage a sequel, because these characters could be SO amazing (except Sawyer, of course)! If my wish does come true, hopefully the writers will choose not to divert so far away from the comic book.

 

[Obi-Wan Pinobi]

Delikado, have you read the LOEG comic? If anyone hasn't and is curious, the comic is great! Quite a bit darker (now there's an understatement) than the movie but a great read that doesn't dumb things down for the reader. There's a trade paperback of the first series that can be found in most major bookstores.

After hearing about the writer, who has written some very good comics, I had hoped for a little better.

 

[Grog]

Granted, not everyone is going to know who all of these people are, but I felt like I was getting dumbed-down explanations. It all just took too long, in my opinion, and left little time for action!

I agree. It took the first half of the movie before all the explanations were done and we could get into the action. This was one of those movies I was kind of torn over. It wasn't a great movie, but did have some great moments, so I'm not sure how I feel about it. I might buy it on DVD so I can skip to the cool parts

'Course I had just seen Pirates before I went to see LXG. So I'm a little biased.

That might have been part of my problem with this movie as well. I got out of POTC at 12:55 and saw a 1:10 showing of LXG. Fifteen minutes wasn't much time to decompress from POTC

 

[DrTomorrow]

I too really wanted this to be a great movie - on the 'New Disney Resort Theme' thread, I put Dark Victorian / Jules Vernian London. However, I too was disappointed. Everything seemed all muddled up, like they started with some interesting but unconnected scene ideas and tried to wire them together. And the cast didn't seem to be given much to work with - the characters were barely two-dimensional. For me one of the coolest scenes was when the Nautilus first surfaced - I'll take one of those, please!

I predict that this will out on DVD in months and then endlessly recycled 20 times a week on cable.

Obi-wan, I'll be looking for that trade paperback; a lot of good comics/GNs don't translate well to the big screen.

Rating 2 out of 10: one for Sean Connery, one for the Nautilus.

 

[Desiree]

Originally posted by DrTomorrow

Rating 2 out of 10: one for Sean Connery, one for the Nautilus.

LOL I agree with that one!! Nautilus was cool, but it moving easily through the canals of Venice?!?! Gimme a little break there!!!

 

[Tinkbell]

I did not like this movie, but my boyfriend did. We went on Saturday night and the theatre was packed.

 

[Curly Q]

I went into the movie not knowing much about the comic book (I knew the characters) and enjoyed the movie. Granted I was not expecting much. My DBF liked it, but I agree with Obi-Wan Pinobi and delikado. Enjoyable, but could have been great. Their were too many characters to develop extensively. Maybe a movie for each individual character and then bring them all together! My rating system is very similar to Obi-Wan Pinobi's

 

[Planogirl]

This movie was one of the silliest films I've ever seen but I enjoyed it in spite of that. I came in prepared for it to be weird and it was.

I loved the Dorian Gray character. He was perfect. My son liked the Invisible Man but I thought that they could have done a better job on his makeup.

 

[delikado]

Originally posted by Obi-Wan Pinobi
Delikado, have you read the LOEG comic? If anyone hasn't and is curious, the comic is great! Quite a bit darker (now there's an understatement) than the movie but a great read that doesn't dumb things down for the reader. There's a trade paperback of the first series that can be found in most major bookstores.

I heard about this comic through my older brother (comic book fanatic/collector) when he asked me to buy him the complete series sometime last year, but no, I didn't get to read it. One of my good friends has it, though, so I may have to borrow it from him... I'd be more likely to read that than the paperback that I saw at Barnes & Noble