The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen
directed by Stephen Norrington
screenplay by James Robinson
based on the comic book by Alan Moore and Kevin O’Neill
starring Sean Connery, Shane West, Peta Wilson, Naseeruddin Shah, Stuart Townsend, Tony Curran and Jason Flemyng

       There are two different movies going on inside The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.  One is the most ridiculous action-adventure movie you could ever lay hands on and another is a curious drama about the changing of an era.  They shouldn't go together well, and in many ways they don't, but individually, I did enjoy both parts for their respective qualities.
        The idea of Alan Moore to take familiar fictional characters from 19th century novels and unite them as a team of super-heros is one of brilliance.  It takes me back to my childhood when I would group different kinds of action figures together as friends and allies.  But ideas are not always as good when followed out, and, as my Transformers, He-Men and Care Bears made for quite an odd-looking fellowship, the League in the film has quite a laughable appearance.
          The characters recruited by the British government are Alan Quatermain (Connery), Captain Nemo (Shah), Mina Harker (Wilson), The Invisible Man (Curran), Dorian Gray (Townsend), and Dr. Jeckyll & Mr. Hyde (Flemyng).  The fact that these individuals could be thought useful in a mission of Her Majesty's Secret Service is beyond all comprehension and that is only the first of bewildering troubles that James Robinson’s script faces.  Real motives and plans are eventually revealed, though by that time, the movie had already confused me enough in its logic that I threw all possible attacks out the window. 
        Instead I sat back and let myself be entertained with the placing of those characters, and an out of place tag-a-long Tom Sawyer (West), side by side, interacting and getting to know each other as if they were in one of Jasper Fforde's Thursday Next novels.  A great deal of the fun lies in scenes aboard Nemo's Nautilus submarine on the way to Venice.  Harker's sexy vampiress is the object of lust and misogyny amongst the rest of the troubled eccentrics for one bit of soapy diversion.   Then there are the many throwaway jokes referencing other famed novels. 
          But at the heart of the story is a fear of the future and the inevitability of death.  Taking place in 1899, these characters, many of whom are near immortals, others passing their primes, attempt to fight off a coming time of new ideas and inventions.  I could only think that what they really feared was a century where their stories would be lost, read less and less as the years went by.  The film is ironically nostalgic for a time of literature, before the technological advances we now prefer to it.
           And I'm sure people are better off reading the actual fiction and maybe even the comics that inspired the picture.  With their costume shop wardrobes, the characters almost seem like a big joke here, and I'd hate for people to walk away with this annoyed association with Mark Twain's young American icon or think they understand the enchanting attraction of Mina Harker from anything other than Bram Stoker's masterpiece.
             But if there is anyone else like me, somewhere between complete ignorance and haughty pretension, that could tolerate the nonsense and revel in the conception of it all, then they are in for a treat.  I have a feeling, though, that there is little audience for League of Extraordinary Gentlemen in the same ways pictures like The Phantom, The Shadow, The Rocketeer and any other adaptation of an old-time, forgotten super-hero, failed at the box-office.  The association is just not there and the hope for revival is futile.  Hopefully it can find some fans like myself, though.  It is ludicrous fun for those who will appreciate it.

"I don't care if it is Halloween or not!  I was James Bond for Christ's sake, I can make a fool out of myself if I want to."