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LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen on the outset sounded like something I ought to enjoy: it's based on a comic book about a team of mismatched literary characters trying to save the world from a criminal mastermind. It's a neat concept, but the concept is essentially where the neatness ends.

The year is 1899. The world is changing as a new century looms. A villain called the Phantom ("How operatic!" says Sean Connery - I should have walked out right there) has assembled a private army armed with weapons of the future such as tanks, metal body armor, and machine guns in a bid to instigate a World War and then take over the world. The British have concocted a counter-offensive. The mysterious M (Richard Roxburgh, the villainous Duke from Moulin Rouge) lures the aging adventurer Allan Quatermain (Sean Connery) out of Africa to lead a team of 'extraordinary gentlemen.' Their mission is to stop the Phantom from sinking Venice and save the world leaders assembled there to negotiate a peace (which wouldn't happen anyway since history records two World Wars within 45 years, but I digress.

Joining Quatermain in the League are an (not the, whose movie rights are held elsewhere) Invisible Man (Tony Curran), Dr. Henry Jekyll (Jason Flemyng) and his monstrous alter ego Mr. Hyde, vampire Mina Harker (Peta Wilson) of Dracula fame, the immortal Dorian Grey (Stuart Townsend), young American agent Tom Sawyer (Shane West), and the science pirate Captain Nemo (Naseeruddin Shah), who offers up his high-tech submarine the Nautilus as the League's mobile base of operations. That is a huge cast of famous and relatively obscure literary characters. In order to keep the summer movie popcorn crowd of teenagers from getting confused, all the characters are boiled down to their basic ideas (although they don't necessarily remain intact from their literary origins.) Quatermain is a tortured old adventurer mourning the deaths of his loved ones. Tom Sawyer is a wet-behind-the-ears gung-ho American (although how Sawyer could remain so youthful when LXG takes place decades after Mark Twain's novels remains a mystery.) The Invisible Man is a thief and is suspect at all times, as is the mysterious Nemo for being an Indian and a pirate. Jekyll is a weakling struggling against succumbing to Hyde permanently. Mina Harker somehow became lovers with Dorian Grey after defeating Dracula and the death of her husband Jonathan Harker.

After a few scenes where the League assembles and has a quickie showdown with the Phantom in Dorian Grey's London flat, interminable stretches take place on board the Nautilus as the Leaguers interact with each other and push forward their little subplots. Quatermain and Sawyer do some mentor/pupil bonding and we learn Quatermain lost his son in a previous adventure. The rampaging Hyde causes all kinds of commotion on board. Mina and Dorian, the two 'immortals,' get it on. Then we discover there is a saboteur on board stealing the blood of the Leaguers as well as Jekyll's formula to transform into Hyde. Everyone suspects the Invisible Man, who has disappeared from the Nautilus and from these scenes entirely. Dorian Grey meanwhile behaves in an extremely suspicious manner throughout. Guess who the culprit actually is, because the League somehow entirely fails to do so.

LXG's centerpiece is a ridiculous action sequence set in Venice that defies logic and comprehension. The Nautilus, which is depicted as being the size of an aircraft carrier, somehow sails idly along the canals of Venice, knocking gondolas aside, before docking and releasing a 1950's style automobile driven by Sawyer and Quatermain that hurtles along the streets of Venice at 100mph while hordes of the Phantom's men shoot at it with machine guns. I've never been to Venice but even I know there aren't any streets there, nor could there have been in 1899 for an automobile to race along on. I didn't understand where the car was going or why, but when the car did get there, Nemo fired a missle from the Nautilus that upon detonation somehow prevented dozens of explosive charges submerged beneath Venice from sinking the city entirely.

Oh, and Dorian Grey is the traitor! He worked for the Phantom all along!

All this leads us to a hidden castle in the icy plains of Mongolia where the Phantom (who also is not who he seemed to be) manufactures his weapons of mass destruction to unleash upon the world. He also intends to use the blood and formula stolen by Dorian Grey to create super soldiers possessing all the powers of the League. The League penetrates the castle and puts an end to the Phantom's plans. Everyone's little arc is completed as Quatermain confronts the Phantom and the demons of his past, Jekyll makes peace with Hyde, the Invisible Man is redeemed as a hero, Sawyer makes Quatermain proud, Mina and Dorian Grey prove that one of them is in fact not immortal after all, and there is a surprising death among the Leaguers that sets up a sequel, as well as that character's resurrection. Which Leaguer dies? To that I ask, which of the actors is in his 70's?

Connery remains a charismatic presence, and the filmmakers used fast cut editing to make the old man move and fight faster than he logically could (even 40 years ago as James Bond, Connery still wasn't all that fast.) However, Connery seems too old to credibly get into and out of the scrapes he does in LXG. There was a moment in the ice fields of Mongolia where it looked like a half-frozen Quatermain was indeed going to die. Imagine the surprise when he did die later on. And yet, the screenplay left an out, a possibility that Connery could indeed return if Great Britain or the sequel needs the services of Allan Quatermain once more. (Despite Quatermain passing the torch to Tom Sawyer, Shane West did not come off as ready to lead this ensemble cast in a second LXG outing.)

Up until the story and action stopped making sense entirely, I was somewhat enjoying The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. The wink, wink humor and constant anachronisms throughout the picture were annoying, especially Connery and West in the car in Venice:

West: "Take the wheel!"

Connery: "I don't know how to drive this bloody thing!"

(Aha, but you do know that you 'drive' a car. I see.)

There were several underwhelming fistfights and firefights, as if the filmmakers were unsure how to pay off the ideas they set in motion on the outset so they shoved a lot of action in there hoping audiences would be satisfied.

But who is this movie for? It stands to reason that many moviegoers who would watch LXG would do so because they are knowledgeable about the literary characters involved and were curious as to how they would be treated. All of the characters were underwritten save Connery's Quatermain, and after their introductions, the movie quickly degenerated into run-of-the-mill action picture. It's a lot of the same gothic-style action moviegoers have seen a million times before. There's nothing extraordinary about the story or action here.

As Connery famously says in the trailer and movie: "I'm waiting to be impressed."

So am I, Mr. Connery. So am I.

- John Orquiola (reviewed 08/03)