Review of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen

No, I did not check this film out of curiosity. No, not because of the ensemble cast either. The by-and-large hate it receives wasn't the case as well. It was purely out of nostalgia. You see the film came out when I was 10 years old. For at-least two years it was my number one favourite film. Viewing it again for the first time yesterday I never realized just how lazy it is. Apart from V for Vendetta, none of the silver-screen adaptations of Alan Moore's works have been worth their weight in gold. LxG is no different. It had the potential of becoming the best, but its laziness and blunt fashion of story-telling made it a very comical, self-parody feature, rather than a cool steam-punk classic as it should've become. I haven't read any of the the LxG comic books so I cannot be sure just how much they followed the original work or tweaked their own. But what I saw, I didn't like. Or rather 50-50. What I didn't like was its story-telling; what I enjoyed was the cast.

The cast was quite-well chosen and everyone played their part quite-convincingly - especially Peta Wilson as Mina Harker. She was delicious in her role, but due to the lazy script, the character, as well as the performance, felt slightly one-dimensional. Shane West as Tom Sawyer was a good surprise. Being the youngest, he handled himself in a good fashion and managed to make his character more interesting and less annoying. Jason Flemyng, although not always in my top 10, is an actor I like to watch onscreen because he reminds me of a strong character-actor, or how Peter Greene would've been like had he been a more mainstream actor. He plays Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde, and was the standout performance from the film. Compared to others he gets a relatively short screen-time but he makes the most of it. Tony Curran, Naseeruddin Shah, Stuart Townshed and Richard Roxburgh were equally better. Due to setbacks, many characters don't rise above one-dimensional. Sean Connery, on the other hand, was too comical to be taken seriously. It was as if he was internally laughing at the whole set-up, which he probably wash... er, I mean was! He was just passable in his role as Allen Quartermain, although he did have the built for it. Honestly, another actor would've been better.

In conclusion, LxG is a decent, fun flick, but is too funny to be taken seriously, and too stupid, too!

6.0/10