The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen

Desperate to find a movie to review – I got my hands on a preview of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (LXG, shame it’s abbreviation wasn’t LEG!) and thanked the heavens that I didn’t pay to see it at the cinema, apologies to those that did. It had the ingredients to be a good movie… Director Stephen Norrington of Blade fame, a decent size cast, Sean Connery (Indiana Jones 3, James Bond) Stuart Townsend (Queen of the Damned), Aussies Peta Wilson (TV’s La Femme Nikita) and Richard Roxborough (Moulin Rouge, MI:2), and a story based on a comic book series written by Alan Moore (From Hell) and Kevin O’Neill. We’ve seen over the past couple of years that resurrecting comic books on to the big screen normally works with the likes of X-Men, Hulk and Spiderman (purposefully forgetting DareDevil, ok!). But something went horribly wrong when Frankenstein flicked the ‘life switch’ on this one.
The League is comprised of great literary characters Allan Quartermain, Mina Harker, Dorian Gray, Dr Jekyll/Mr. Hyde, Captain Nemo, the Invisible Man, and my favourite, Special Agent Tom Sawyer from the American Secret Service. Sounds like it could be worth watching or at least reading, but the plot was rice paper thin, the dialogue, oh the dialogue, worse than 90 minutes of corny one liners from Bond films and Arnie movies! It did have a couple of memorable moments though; a whole troupe of bad guys dressed up like Ned Kelly armed with flame-throwers and one bad guy mutating into a huge beast of a thing and someone asking, “What is that thing?” and the reply – “It’s Neil.”
LXG gets my Bad Cheese Award. So far it is the worst movie I’ve seen this year (I know it’s early on, but I watch a lot!) and I feel it will be a tough one to beat. The idea was there, but… just not my cup of English Breakfast tea. Quite ordinary.