The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen

Just got home from seeing The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen with my family and my buddy Amelia. It was excellent. ...or, well, not excellent per se, but it was terribly terribly nifty.

It wasn't really at all like the comic. True, the characters had the same names and basic traits, but...it still wasn't the same. Alan Quatermain wasn't an opium addict, Mina was a vampire, Dr. Jekyll still relied on his elixer to transform, and the Invisible Man actually had some morals. They'd added Dorian Gray and Tom Sawyer and changed the entire storyline. But it was really cool anyway.

The characters themselves were quite well cast. Peta Wilson has a fabulous face, and she was very good as Mina Harker. She had the right sort of manner. Sean Connery kicked ass, as he normally does, and he did very well as Alan Quatermain, considering that the movie version wasn't, y'know, just barely hanging on. My favorite was Stuart Townsend as Dorian Gray. For one, I just like him. He also had poise, and that wonderfully jaded voice.

Dorian Gray, by the way, had the best line in the movie. When asked, "What are you?" he had only one response:

"I'm complicated."

That was nifty.

What I also liked was that the set, costumes, etc., really captured the look of the comic. They didn't do the story, but they got the look. Well...not with Nautilus. The Nautilus in the movie was kind of a giant white silver-encrusted phallic symbol. Captain Nemo's big car was also white and covered with ornate silver stuff, but it wasn't quite so massive. And I'm proud to say that Tom Sawyer made history in that version of the world, by being the first person ever to get in a car crash. It was really the only interesting thing he did.

I've also reached a conclusion. True, Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde is like the Hulk. But he's way cooler. This is because:

- He created his big scary monster form himself.

- He doesn't turn green.

- He can talk himself in the mirror, and the other side of him will answer back.

- He's realistic. Or, well, more so than the Hulk.

This review having been written, I'm going to head off to IMDb and look up pictures of Stuart Townsend.

Oh, and the word of the day is:

brouhaha, n. - A commotion, rumpus, ruckus, or fracas, but with a different name.

Posted by Gabriel Fey at July 12, 2003 05:38 PM | Trackback