User reviews

This was one of my most anticipated movies. I love Connery and the premise of this was great. A Indiana Jones setting for adventure, six great characters from classic fiction, and a good story.

Somehow, these elements were lost in the presentation. The story is supposedly based on a graphic novel (comic book) by Alan Moore but the departures from the original story are too numerous. Sadly, not only the storyline is abandoned but the style and flair is as well.

The entire movie is far too dark. I'm so tired of "dark and atmospheric" becoming just a vehicle for covering up lousy sets and fx. The action sequences are fake and choppy as the director decides on fast editing rather than skilled choreography.

This is a period piece, set in 1899 but there are a lot of continuity errors. They refer to the car as a "car", for example, though they didn't know what it was.

For his part, Connery does fine. But he really always does. Connery doesn't really "act", he's simply himself each time. Thus you won't see much difference between James Bond and Allan Quatermain. You will see a huge difference, however, in the quality of the Connery Bond movies and LXE.

The other characters were fun at times, but they either ended up underused, poorly portrayed or just odd.

Wilson's Harker character was very confusing. Was she a vampire? If so, what of the old mythos about not being out in sunlight? She walks around on the deck of the Nautilus in broad daylight. Not sure where all the bats came from either, particularly in the Arctic.

I liked Dr. Jekyll best, I suppose. However, his character left a lot to be desired as well. He comments early after Mr. Hyde saves the Nautilus not to make a "saint out of a sinner", yet the movie does just that. Hyde is never portrayed as vicious or evil. He's either running frightened of Connery's gun or eagerly lending his hand to the good guys. Uhhh...

Tom Sawyer as an American Secret Service agent. Nah, didn't really work. Dorian Gray was a waste as well. A deep character that they didn't bother exploring at all. Nemo was terribly underused.

In better hands this would have been a much better movie. It had a lot of things going for it in casting, plot and premise... but they made it stale and flat. Too bad.

5 out of 10.

Having heard about the movie League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, I rushed to get the graphic novel, which I must say is one of the most intelligent graphic novels ever written. So you can understand that my expectations were high when the film came out.

My initial impressions when I first saw this were fanboy appreciation. However, 8 years onwards, I catch myself thinking: "What the heck were you thinking?"

Let's start with casting. The perfect: Connery as Quartermain (though the original drug addicted Quartermain would have made the film more interesting), and Shah as Nemo. The rest of the cast is plain forgettable.

As for the story, I initially was a proponent for completely following the graphic novel word for word, until I saw Watchmen, and was disappointed. However, that being said, I wanted something more challenging in the script, especially if you are going to turn a complex graphic novel to the screen. Instead, the story is dull and straightforward. There were many counts of spelling out of inferences in this film, insulting the viewer. As for the action, in hindsight, it was really "Americanized" with all the wild gadgets and explosions--plain boring. Basically, if you saw "Van Helsing", you've seen the action.

My recommendation? One watch is OK. It does get trite. But for all those Alan Moore fanboys, dump it, and just appreciate his graphic novels. It will be hard to bring any Alan Moore movie successfully to screen.

I really really wanted to like this movie, but somehow it turned out super-boring, kind of confusing , and poorly held together.

Fun over the top action movie! Nothing to write home about just a fun movie to enjoy when you have a little time on your hands. It was enjoyable to see famous books characters such as The Invisible Man, Tom Sawyer, Captain Nemo, Allan Quatermain, Doctor Jekyll, Mr. Hyde, Mina Harker, Moriarty, and Dorian Gray. The story, writing, and plots were about as basic as any bargin bin action fantasy. Action was fine, we are probably spoiled now with Marvel's multi million dollar movies with all the main stream action in it. So I don't like critiquing the action for being dull and straight forward, but it was. It not bad or good, it was just fine.

The comic book/graphic novel trend is sizzling is Hollywood right now, where filmmakers take on big projects like Sin City (2005), V for Vendetta (2005) and Batman Begins (2005) and attempt to translate them to the silver screen. If there is anything to learn from The Simpsons it's that comic book fans are loyal and mean a great deal of box office gross for these adaptations when they hit cinemas. Now director Stephen Norrington has jumped on the bandwagon and breathes life into the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen graphic novels by Alan Moore.

League of Gentlemen is a film that, due to its disjointed writing is relegated to a bad fate with critics. Perhaps this is rightly so, because it really is a babble of crazy film-making. Imagine you take a shotgun, load it chock-full of famous literary characters like Captain Nemo, Tom Sawyer, Dorian Gray and Allan Quatermain, cram dozens of story lines, plot twists, one-liners, explosions and weapons in it and then fire into a random mess. Then you have your film in a nutshell. Is it any good? Not really. Is it entertaining? Hell yes.

But then, I have always had great affection for films in which characters with different skills team up to a accomplish a goal, whether it is a heist, a mission or winning a boxing title. Here we have the mission part taken care of. A mysterious leader called "M" recruits a league of literary figures to save the world (heh, get it? "M" recruits Sean Connery) and these colourful people are our main characters that we follow, lending their eccentric skills like vampirism and invisibility to the job.

This is a film that does not offer much in the way of atmosphere, tension or foreshadowing, but rather dishes out huge doses of violence to keep your interest. In fact, the first scene in the film opens as a fight sequence -- not really engrossing because we know nothing of the struggle behind it. This is mostly true for the whole film. We never quite feel for the characters because there are too many of them to get to know and too little time to do it. It instead compensates with action and lots of it. Special effects are uneven, but always satisfactory.

I think this film is best likened to Pirates of the Caribbean or Batman and Robin -- a great big mess often bordering on campy, but never quite getting there. Not as bad as it will have you believe, but DEFINITELY not a good movie by any means.

5/10

I would echo most of the pluses and minuses listed by other user-reviewers, but I would add a bit of kudos for Peta Wilson. In the past, actresses played their Victorian heroine parts as "spunky lady rebelling against Victorian repression." Wilson took a different tack and kept her character aloof and reserved, as per the code of conduct at the time. As far as I know, no one else has pulled this off in an action-adventure film, and she did it quite believably. 5 of 10.

Now, this is a film I absolutely loved when I was younger. I used to replay the Venice bomb explosion chase scene constantly on a weekly basis. And, this film started my fascination with Dorian Gray (no idea why...). However, much like these creative literary individuals, time is an unusual construct that uncovers cracks in what was once viewed as a masterpiece (totally not exaggerating...). It's a shame that Moore's source material was not fully realised in this adaptation, delivering only half the thrills and character interactions. A league of highly powered individuals are assembled to take down a vigilante known as "Phantom", who wants to start a war. There are predictable twists and turns and various sub-plots, but for the most part this is a straightforward story that relishes in its cyberpunk environment. It's not often you find yourself watching a blockbuster with Alan Quartermain, Dorian Gray, Captain Nemo and Dr Jekyll, and yet feel underwhelmed by the whole ordeal. One simple description for this: missed opportunity. The film that was delivered is fine, it's neither good nor bad. Plenty of disposable action sequences and visual effects that produce a dark gothic tone which will appeal to many. The casting was decent, particularly Connery, and they all pull their weight and get involved. Unfortunately, these characters are fairly one dimensional and lack any sort of natural interactions with each other. Sure, there is banter and harmless mentoring that acts as foreshadowing, but they truly never felt like a league. The dialogue resorts to mass amounts of exposition (including an entire voice recording of explanations, thinking that viewers aren't intelligent enough to piece the details together), and clunky conversations that resemble two blocks of wood silently communicating. It's a shame, as there was so much potential to be had here! But the outdated cumbersome screenplay negates any potential of excellence. As Quartermain wonderfully says, "Too Shoooon!".

THE LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN

Aspect ratio: 2.39:1 (Panavision)

Sound formats: Dolby Digital / DTS

Toward the end of the 19th century, Prof. Quatermain (Sean Connery) is recruited to lead a band of superheroes - each drawn from popular literature of the day, each blessed with distinctive powers - to defeat a monstrous villain who is plotting to take over the world.

Based on the celebrated graphic novel by Alan Moore and Kevin O'Neill, Stephen Norrington's high-concept melodrama combines the Gothic splendor of Victorian 'penny dreadfuls' with the excesses of modern Hollywood, resulting in a curious hybrid of 'Boy's Own' adventure story and turbo-charged blockbuster (set-pieces include a spectacular recreation of Captain Nemo's 'Nautilus', the sinking of Venice, and several destructive rampages by the hulking Mr. Hyde!), though James Dale Robinson's clever script never seems forced or arbitrary. Connery coasts through proceedings on the strength of his established screen persona, while scene-stealer Stuart Townsend (QUEEN OF THE DAMNED) camps it up as a dandified Dorian Gray whose skirmishes with vampire/ex-girlfriend Mina Harker (Peta Wilson, TV's "La Femme Nikita") are charged with sexual tension - these characters surely deserve a movie of their own! Sadly, the film is undermined by a mediocre villain, whose lack of visual presence leaves a significant hole in the narrative. However, despite this minor drawback and some well-documented production troubles (Connery and Norrington were at loggerheads throughout), the finished article is much better than its modest box-office performance would otherwise suggest.

This movie is a mess. With all those great characters it should have been great, but it ends up being seriously under written and seriously over produced. They went "Wild Wild West" on us; a little subtlety would have gone a long way. The big question is why? They took great source material, and proceeded to slam it with a wrecking ball. What a bunch of idiots!

League is an OK mix of adventure comedy and horror. Good performances by the cast. League is a perfect choice if your looking for a high energy movie for the weekend with your friends.

However the story is bad.

Connery is the perfect Hollywood hero with his good looks, quick tongue, and courageous and daring attitude with the others as the perfect goofy sidekicks. With its Great special effects combined with witty dialauge and gorgeous scenery this movie is OK.

They could have made this film so much better if the characters and villain were more fleshed out.

Famously a disaster on virtually every level, though not actually a flop at the box office, I rewatched "The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen" this time for the "How Did This Get Made" Podcast.

Alan Quartermain (Sean Connery) is called back to serve his country as part of a group of individuals, with either specialist skills or magical powers, to help stop a terrorist who is leading the world to the brink of war. He's joined on the team by Mina Harker (Peta Wilson, Captain Nemo (Naseeruddin Shah), Doren Grey (Stuart Townsend), The Invisible Man (Tony Curran), Dr. Henry Jekyll (Jason Fleming) and Tom Sawyer (Shane West).

I have now read the source material and though I wouldn't have known this on my first viewing, it's actually not a respectful adaptation. Rather cynically adding characters and retooling others to make the film more palatable to the "four quadrant" audience at the time. It really is a intellectual property prime for a TV series reboot, one with a slower pace that could take more time to tell its story, especially now that even more aspects of the story are in the public domain - especially if Amazon make the series and are happier with Campion Bond being used.

I say that particularly because this film has a couple of big twists that come too early in the film, before we really care about any of the characters (if, at all, we end up doing so). It's not the films principle failing though, that would be that in the second half it almost totally devolves into a mess of confused and confusing CGI battles that lack focus, drama and logic.

It's perhaps not the worst film I've watched for the podcast, but relatively to the money spent on it, it's a dull time.

I was expecting so much from this film but it just didn't manage to keep me hooked. I'm afraid to say that I fell asleep before the film ended (on two separate occasions) and still need to get round to seeing the last twenty minutes.

The computer generated graphics weren't real enough for the big screen and looked more like they had been lifted from a video game. The Nautilus cruising through the ocean looked like it had come straight from the latest 'Final Fantasy'.

My 12 year old son enjoyed it though so maybe I was expecting too much from a film with a certification rating to match.

The concept of this movie is good. A team full of extraordinary gentlemen and one lady. The movie feels good in parts but not as a whole. We can feel that it has been taken from a comic books as the dialogues are broken like in comic books. But that is the style of comic books. That feels good there. But in this movie nothing is smooth. Things happen too fast at sometimes. Characters are poorly build. We don't even feel the way about Tom Sawyer as we did in Mark Twain's 'The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.' I was looking at this movie with great expectation but was only disappointed. But the movie is not overall bad as it portrays some good steampunk cinematography and art. Mina Harker's flight in the night sky is really extraordinary. Naseeruddin shah also portrayed good swordsmanship against automatic guns. But the storytelling was bad and no attachment can be seen between the League members.

The main ingredients to a delightful and successful viewing of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen would be ; don't take it seriously, let your brain switch off and enjoy the creativity and imagination that has been put forward for this film. At best , the film is average but it never boring and moves along at a quick pace.

With the story being put into place in the first 15 minutes , the film unfortunately races away to the final credits with no truly exciting moments. The film could of been much better but instead it shallow with no real great moments. But to comfort us through to the end is Sean Connery who as always gives a great performance . The most annoying factor of the film is the fact that i found the super humans hero's to be rather annoying and tedious . The one who was invisible, i just hoped he died early.

Overall, it a average film which consists of almost zero great moments, even the action scenes, despite being pulled off decently, never really made you jump of your seat . The acting is decent enough but by the end off it, you'll most likely will ever watch it again

An action film set in Victorian England. A movie based on a masterful graphic novel by a man of undeniable talent in the art of writing them. Sounds interesting, and as if it has quite a bit of potential. The movie *could* have been worse... and it's definitely entertaining. Directed by the man behind the first Blade picture, this is as flashy and stylized as they come. At times, this takes away from the enjoyment, but mostly, it's just cool to look at, and the film does feature some rather nice visuals, and only once or twice does the much-used animation only look cartoon-y. The script changes around quite a bit of source material, and fans of the original work by Alan Moore(yours truly included) will, by no means, find this to live up to the quality of that. There are various references to famous literature, though nowhere near as well-implemented as they were in the novels, and, whilst probably conceived as cute and clever, they more often than not come off as embarrassing. For all the teenage boys out there, in spite of the low-cut piece that Wilson wears in the poster and on the cover, she dresses far more conservatively than that for most of this. Hyde's transformation is somewhat interesting. Characters are changed around, mainly for sheer cool-ness effect. Some of the camera-work and editing is quite nice. Much of the dialog is atrocious, and some of the lines are even poorly *delivered*, due to how awful the writing is(some things, you just *can't* get to sound good or real). The action is mostly exciting and well-done, and I'd say it's the best thing about the film. The pacing is slightly off. Characterization is limited, but reasonable. Acting varies. The villain is somewhat ruined(early on, at that) by too much exposition(in that he works solely as a mysterious, unseen character... beyond that, he starts to seem silly), and he's not the only one... and on the subject of exposition, some of it is really obvious. The film has events that require *serious* suspension of disbelief. The characters all seemed interesting. The humor is good. The special effects are also very good, much better than several other new movies(read: Pirates of the Caribbean, Terminator 3). The film isn't bad, it just isn't terribly memorable, either, but it does provide reasonable entertainment for the duration, if you can stand the stuff that doesn't work well, and, well, for fans of the novel... personally, I just view this as a separate entity altogether, inspired by, but not based on, Moore's work. It helps. I recommend this to any fan of action and adventure... as long as you aren't too upset by inaccuracies, that you have a high threshold for bad dialog, and you don't have to pay much money, if any at all(catch it on TV, instead) to watch it. Attention and time could also be better spent. 5/10

From the previews I was expecting a great film, and went away from the cinema thinking how badly a great opportunity had been missed.

The story is loose at best. The characters are two dimensional and hold no real interest in the viewer as to if they win or lose.

The CGI is awful, with Dr. Hyde looking like an Action Man (G.I. Joe) with foam padding, and the Nautilus looking far to much like animation to be taken seriously.

The whole story seems to have little 'goal' to it, with things seemingly just happening to move the limited plot. For instance, how does Tom Sawyer know how to drive the automobile? How does Dorian Grey know how to pilot, let alone launch, the mini sub?

A bad film with a great cast. Just shows what can go wrong when a crap script and a basic storyline are thrown loads of money.

Sir Sean Connery leads a rather ramshackle cast in this hybrid of adventure stories cobbled together using plenty of CGI and very little decent writing. He is the legendary "Allan Quatermain", dragged from his retirement to save the British Empire from an evil determined to force Britain and Germany into a war. He takes some convincing, but a very early departure from the film for his old friend "Nigel" (David Hemmings) convinces him to sign up. To Victorian London we now return where he meets his cohorts - "Dorian Gray" (Stuart Townsend); "Mina Harker" (Peta Wilson) and "Dr. Jekyll" (Jason Flemyng). "Captain Nemo" (Naseeruddin Shah) provides his state of the art submarine; Tony Curran is the invisible contributor ("Skinner"), and finally the Heath Ledger-like Shane West injects a bit of youthful vigour as "Tom Sawyer". Yep - the narrative is every bit as confused as the characterisations. The group must try to find the criminal mastermind behind all these shenanigans (Richard Roxburgh) and thwart his plan - a journey that takes them from Africa to London to Venice to the polar ice caps... All, clearly, without leaving the comfort of their Prague studio. Sir Sean's performance is deliberately, I think, hammily over the top and Townsend also has his tongue in his cheek, but the rest of this is a really disappointing computer generated adventure that does have plenty of action, but is really light on the peril and features a cast that just don't gel. The story is fine, and the production clearly didn't lack investment - but the sum of the parts makes for a rather disjointed comic book feature that, at almost 2 hours long, is a long old slog to watch.

This ambitious project boasts dynamic visuals and an amazing production design. The action sequences are fantastic.

'The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen' is an unusual film, combining several interesting characters in one film - as Marvel and DC would do later with their respective franchises. Here we have Allan Quartermain, Captain Nemo, The Invisible Man, Dorian Gray, Jekyll/Hyde, Tom Sawyer and Mina Harker (a vampire whom I've never heard of before). As the film assumes we're familiar with all the characters already, they really don't offer explanatory introductions. The Invisible Man was absent for most of the movie - pardon the pun!

Despite being an exciting action adventure fantasy, it is also an interesting mystery thriller. I enjoyed the character bonding before all hell broke loose, and really liked the chemistry between them. It made me root for all of them. This is a non-stop action adventure thrill ride that never ceases to amaze. The Venice collapse scene was incredible. I love this film!

In some ways, this film was ahead of it's time with all of its (attempted) special effects and CGI. But at the same time, it's these very things that hold the film back. Too much attention was put into trying to create wow moments and not enough on character development and storyline... and with that in mind you'd expect the effects to actually be better than they were (example: did they just get lazy at times with Tony Curran's character??)

It's like if this movie would have been made in 2018 with the proper budget and editing, it could have been special because modern audiences love "superhero" (and "antihero") stories and it would have gotten the attention it deserved during post-production. But instead, "The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen" will sit on the shelf with other movies whose aspirations were bigger than it could handle.

It's always fun to see Connery on the screen and the other characters (sans Sawyer) were (just about) likable if not intriguing. So I'd say give it a viewing, even if not for anything but to see how far we've come, but temper expectations.

A proper reboot 5-10 years from now would not be surprising, or unwelcome.

Verdict: Watch It.

Rumour says that Sean Connery quit his acting career just because he was ashamed of this movie. I don't know if there's any truth to that story but it says something about the reputation of this film; almost everybody says it's terrible.

I watched it but it wasn't as bad as I expected. I haven't read the original graphic novel, so I was probably being more merciful towards the movie because of not having big expectations.

The characters and story are interesting, so at least some good qualities from the source material transcend to the movie. I just got the feeling that I want to read the original because it's probably even better. The concept of taking classic characters from literature and putting them into a same group is excellent.

The movie also has a lot of action and I think that is the weaker part. The action scenes were not terrible but often quite chaotic and could have been directed better. I got the feeling that if the movie focused more on the characters and drama, and less on action, it would have been better. Now it became a bit mediocre action adventure when it could have been something greater.

The special effects look quite dated but also strangely fascinating. The computer effects (like the Nautilus submarine) create somehow alien and surreal feel at times. I liked the overall look of the film, which looked very...well, comic book style. Like it should be.

I think it's a decent flick if adventure and superhero films are your favorite things. But if you are a huge fan of Alan Moore then be prepared it's probably not as good as you wish for. But it sure is not any kind of "worst ever" thing! Just a bit mediocre.