Movie Review The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (2003) 

Directed by Stephen Norrington 

Written by James Dale Robinson 

Starring Sean Connery, Shane West, Stuart Townsend, Peta Wilson 

Release Date July 11th, 2003 

Published July 10th, 2003 

In 1986, Alan Moore blew the doors off of the comics code of the 1950's with his seminal work,  Watchmen. Until that comic was released, the industry was mired in a rut of safe, kid-friendly superheroes that lacked depth and character. The superheroes of Watchmen were not your average superheroes. These characters were morally ambivalent and often indulged in the types of activities that would turn Superman's stomach. Moore’s follow-up book about Jack The Ripper, From Hell, was yet another seedy, enveloping-pushing work of art, and was turned into a sensational film in 2001. Then, in 2003, someone tried to bring Moore back to the big screen and the results were not great. 

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen as a comic was a radical rethink of DC's Justice League series that replaced traditional superheroes with characters from 19th century literature. Using the novels as back story, Moore took characters such as H. Rider Haggard's Alan Quartermain and Bram Stoker's Mina Harker and revised them as superheroes fighting on behalf of the British crown. But the writer of Watchmen could not be satisfied with a straight superhero adventure story; each character was now being shot through Moore's twisted view of heroes. 

In Moore's world Quartermain is an old man with diminished skills. Mina Harker survived Dracula and is now a vampire. (Other characters, like H.G Welles's Invisible Man and Captain Nemo were criminals. The Invisible Man was a rapist.) Nevertheless, they fought evil in an alternate universe. Knowing this, I shouldn't be surprised that the film version of The League is a tame, PG-13 version of the comic, stripped of its lasciviousness and any shred of anything interesting.

Directed by Blade's Stephen Norrington, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen stars Sean Connery as Quartermain, an adventurer living in Africa but only as a legend; no longer the Quartermain of the legendary stories. When Quartermain is approached by an emissary of the British government to help fend off a potential world war, his immediate response is a flat no. That is, until his friends in Africa are attacked, which brings the old lion out of retirement. Quartermain's assignment is to lead a reformation of a legendary crime fighting team, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. 

With the help of Harker (Peta Wilson); Rodney Skinner--The Invisible Man (Tony Curran); and Captain Nemo--high seas Indian pirate and no relation to the clownfish (Nahseeruddin Shah); Quartermain will help the countries of Europe avoid a world war. However, a task this big calls for a bigger team so Quartermain calls on an old acquaintance named Dorian Gray (Stuart Townsend), whose unique ability is not pronounced until gunmen attack his home and he survives multiple gunshot wounds. Gray can't be killed (an ability writer Oscar Wilde hadn't envisioned for his egocentric character). During the gun battle, another team member comes out of the woodwork, an American secret service agent named Tom Sawyer (Shane West).

One more team member is needed, leading the team to Paris where legendary scientist Dr. Henry Jekyll (Jason Flemyng) has been banished because he can't control his monstrous alter ego, Mr. Hyde. With Jekyll and Hyde onboard, it's time to launch into the meat of the film. The character introductions are the best part of the film, but they take awhile. Using Nemo's massive watercraft, the Nautilus, the League heads to Venice, Italy to prevent the bad guy, known as the Phantom, from attacking a conference meant to prevent world war.

From here, the film slips into dull gun battles, loud explosions, and scenes where special effects stand in for dialogue and character development. Director Stephen Norrington has an eye for staging, his background is in effects, so that isn't surprising; however, unlike in his best film, 1998's Blade, he doesn't have a story as compelling as his sets. The film's plot? Well, let's just say I haven't seen this many plot holes since the President's last State of the Union speech. 

The problem with this film is that the edge that made people want to turn The League into a movie is excised to make the film marketable to teenagers. This compromise renders the story un-filmable, unless you do it like every other superhero movie ever made, which is exactly what Norrington does. Aside from its literary conceit, The League brings nothing new to the genre, except maybe a lack of tights. This is exactly the story Moore was reacting to when he wrote Watchmen, which has thus far avoided the Hollywood treatment (and if this is how they are going to do it I hope it remains elusive.)

Just how much does The League movie pander to marketing? The team now has an American member just to improve the box office chances of the movie. Tom Sawyer is added to the cast though he was not in Moore's comic. Sawyer is here because, again, marketers thought the film needed an American character to market to American audiences. Oscar Wilde's Dorian Gray is also a new addition though not because anyone saw his potential as a character in this universe. Rather, Gray was added as a replacement  character in place of a Moore character who pushed the boundaries of copyright infringement, a British secret service character named Campion Bond.

If you can't do the source material correctly, just don't do it at all. The graphic novels of The League of Extraordinary Gentleman, I am told,  are spectacularly moody and dark stories told in fascinating detail and rendered artfully on the page. The film is an anathema to its source. There are still rumors of a Watchmen movie out there and I guarantee they will screw it up.