# The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (2003)



## Brian G Turner (Oct 8, 2003)

Saw a poster for a film: "The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen" - which has Sean Connery as the lead. 

Sounds a very oddball picture - like a strange collection of "super-heroes", to some degree. Anyone heard of it - or seen it already in the States?


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## Gnome (Oct 8, 2003)

Saw it.....If you turn your mind off, it's sort of fun.

It's been almost universally panned here in the states, and I must admit it's pretty shaky in the plot dept.
BUT, anytime you have Alan Quartermain, Mina Harker, Dorian Grey, Tom Sawyer, Jeckel & Hyde, Capt. Nemo, and the Invisible Man banding together to defeat a diabolical enemy, you are going to have a somewhat good time.

I found it silly, and very escapist. Totally forgetable, but kind of endearing.

Definately subjective.....my wife hated it!


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## Brian G Turner (Oct 8, 2003)

Yes...it sounds distinctly odd! But hopefully that means it may provide a refreshing change in terms of big movie releases.

Btw - Who is Sean Connery playing??


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## Gnome (Oct 8, 2003)

Sean plays Alan Quartermain (King Solomon's Mines for the uninitiated).  The rest of the cast is relatively unknown to me. Although, Richard Roxburg (Moulin Rouge) plays a role that turns out to be a surprise - so I won't give it away.


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## Foxbat (Oct 8, 2003)

This film sounds daft enough to tempt me into giving it a look 

What accent does Sean use in this one?
Is it his English/Scottish or American/Scottish or (God forbid) his Irish/Scottish? 

If you're reading this....sorry Sean. I just couldn't resist.


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## Gnome (Oct 9, 2003)

Foxbat said:
			
		

> This film sounds daft enough to tempt me into giving it a look
> 
> What accent does Sean use in this one?
> Is it his English/Scottish or American/Scottish or (God forbid) his Irish/Scottish?
> ...


He uses his English/Scottish.   And yes, his Irish/Scottish is uninteligable....might as well be eating while he talks.


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## Foxbat (Oct 9, 2003)

> He uses his English/Scottish. And yes, his Irish/Scottish is uninteligable....might as well be eating while he talks.


LOL!


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## Twelve (Oct 9, 2003)

Hey, I just liked seeing Sean Connery getting into fist fights.

Oh, and the female vampire in the movie was VERY nice.

Other than that, not much of a film.

12


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## dwndrgn (Oct 9, 2003)

I'd like to see this one, even though I know it isn't up to what I would want it to be.  I really liked the concept.


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## milamber (Oct 10, 2003)

I've heard nothing but bad reviews.  "A poor alternative to X-Men" was one of the quotes.


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## Twelve (Oct 10, 2003)

Yeah, but...I mean, TOM SAWYER was in it!!

12


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## jerchar (Oct 21, 2003)

I was so impatient to see this movie; but let's face it if you've seen the previews, you've seen the movie. Best character in this film was definitely the woman.


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## Twelve (Oct 22, 2003)

jerchar said:
			
		

> Best character in this film was definitely the woman.


Amen.


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## ray gower (Oct 28, 2003)

*The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen*

Take the film Seven Samurai (or The Magnificent Seven, if you don't mind plagerisim) manning the roles with famous fictional Victorian heroes and anti-heroes:-
Allan Quartermain- adventurer (H Rider Haggard)
Dr Jekyll and Mr Hide- Scientist and Hulk's daddy (Robert Stevenson)
Captain Nemo- (Jules Verne)
Invisible Man- (HG Wells)
Mrs Harker- Wife of Jonathan Harker, Van Helsing's assistant in Bram Stoker's original Dracula.
Dorian Grey- Oscar Wilde's narcissistic immortal
Add a famous comic writer, Alan Moore, to draw a comic board.
Throw in a plot from Doc Savage.
Mix well, adding in large pinches of reference to every other famous writer one can think of:- Head of the British Secret Service is 'M' opposite Sean Connery's Quartermain, who later becomes Moriarty, copies of The Strand and Action for Boys on the table, and Nemo's first-mate is Ishmael (from Moby Dick) and the Hunchback of Notre Dam (Hyde swinging around the roof tops of Paris) and the obligatory American so US audiences will watch it.

And we have the latest reciepe in the continuing saga of comics reinventing themselves by becoming films.

And this one I really enjoyed!

Lots of action (from the Mk1 tank breaking into the Bank of England to the destruction of the gothic mansion), a touch of intrigue (if blown a little soon), fair amount of subtle comedy and a good opportunity to just turn off the brain and enjoy a good old fashioned adventure story of the old Rank mould.

Some things were over the top, Nemo's submarine towering over the London Docks being the main one, they are by and large minor niggles.


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## Status (Dec 21, 2003)

Ok, this wasn't quite what I was expecting but wasn't bad at all. Actually rather enjoyed it myself. 

*



			the obligatory American so US audiences will watch it
		
Click to expand...

 *

It had nothing to do with the reason I watched it, still trying to figure out what part he was playing anyway, unless it was so they could have an idiot who would try anything . Actually my favorite charator was and still is Sean Connery (always liked his acting).

The storyline may not be new but was relaxing with the comedy that was laced into it. Also enjoyed the action part of it, just enough to make it intresting but not overcrowed with acrobatics. And I agree the mystrey was very good but found out a little too soon for my liking.

I think I could safely say I'd rate it a 8 out of 10 on the enjoyment scale. Good thing I'm not really a rank judge.


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## ray gower (Dec 22, 2003)

It looks very much like a role Connery took for fun, as did most of the cast and it shows in the way that they verge on overdoing things as they got into the spirit of the thing. Think that helped lighten things up considerably.


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## Annette (Mar 15, 2004)

I must admit this film only appealed to me because of Sean Connery being in it. LOL

Wasn't bad but wasn't as good as I expected (perhaps my expectations were too high). Advertisements of it looked good but didn't come up too scratch.

One question tho why didn't the 'vampires' turn to dust in the sunlight or were they similar to Blade as in 'daywalkers'? Or did I miss that bit?

annette


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## ray gower (Mar 16, 2004)

Think we hit the difference between a Boys Own reader and the girls Bunty comics. 

I used to thrive on the tongue in cheek all hero action stories, Dick Barton, Biggles et al. And the film was fun and made me quite nostalgic.

The only vampire was Mrs Harker and if I remember my Hammer films right, there were invariably complications with her conversion so she never became a fully fledged vampire- Just the teeth and a liking for black.


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## FeedMeTV (Mar 3, 2005)

I watched this again the other night, I personally found it quite an average film with dodgy writing in parts. But it's easy to watch and the general idea is lovely mixing all the characters together. I also think that the characterisation is good considering the film has to pay attention to a lot of main characters.

It has a bit of a sequal-to-follow ending although I doubt this would be persued.

I like Stuart Townsend but now whenever I see him I think "ah, that's the man that would have been Aragorn." Poor bloke.


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## immortalem (Mar 4, 2005)

I think this movie had a great concept and the acting wasn't too bad.  But I think the writing was off a bit because the film lacked a little something.  It sort of fell flat.  The special effects were not too bad though.


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## Dave (Mar 8, 2005)

I really enjoyed this one, and the idea and concept were fantastic. If retro-cyberpunk is known as _Steampunk_ these must be _Steam Supeheroes_!

One nit though, I've been to Venice (last year) and the Nautilus would not get up a canal, let alone into the lagoon! Nor would the car get very far from St. Marks Square either!

I agree with Ray that the addition of Tom Sawyer into the mix didn't really add much, but I was wondering who they could have added instead.

Imdb says that a scene was cut from the film where Sawyer explains that he and his friend, Agent Huck Finn, were tracking down the Fantom, and that the Fantom killed Huck. That would have at least explained why Sawyer was so intent on getting the Fantom.

The Character of Campion Bond, a British Intelligencer, was to be a main character in early drafts of the script. He was eventually totally cut out of the film to be saved for a possible sequel.

Who else could they have used?

I expect that Sherlock Holmes has been overdone somewhat, and anyhow since Moriaty was the villain he would have deduced that rather quickly. M (a shortening for James Moriarty) is taken from the Sherlock Holmes stories as well as from the James Bond books.

There might have been some rights issues with using Holmes. There were rights issues with using the Invisible Man, which is why they changed him from Hawley Griffin in the comic (original novel gave no forename) to Rodney Skinner. All of the other characters have fallen into the public domain, which means that anybody can write about them.

If it needed to be an American actor, or the work of an American author (for American audiences) then why not something by Edgar Allan Poe? He used a French detective by the name of C.Auguste Dupin in 'The Murders of the Rue Morgue'. But maybe that doesn't fit the timeline here. I donâ€™t know any other American fictional characters of that period, but there has to be something better than Tom Sawyer! 

Imdb says that portraits seen in the background of various shots appear to be of previous Leagues, and one in particular corresponds to a similar portrait seen in the comic. This previous â€œLeagueâ€ consists, then, of: The Reverend Dr. Syn, pirate and highwayman; Sir Percy Blakeney, the Scarlett Pimpernel; Natty Bumppo, aka Hawkeye or the Deerslayer, hero of "Last of the Mohicans"; and Lemuel Gulliver, of "Gulliver's Travels". Two female members appearing in the comic portrait (Lady Blakeney and Fanny Hill) are absent.

The other two portraits in the meeting room also represent previous Leagues. The first shows Robin Hood (from various legends/poems), Ivanhoe (from Walter Scott's novel), and the Black Arrow (a Robert Louis Stevenson novel). The Black Arrow, though, is set in the 15th (during the War of the Roses) century, far later than Robin Hood and Ivanhoe, but this may be one of the many who took the name prior to the novel's setting. The other portrait displays the Four Musketeers; Porthos, Athos, Aramis, and D'Artagnan (from the various novels by Alexandre Dumas), the Sea Hawk and Captain Blood (both pirates created by Rafael Sabatini.)

The ending I didn't quite understand, but probably alludes to a possible sequel. Imdb also says that the poster in the background of one scene on the docks displays "Volcanic eruptions on Mars". This is an inside joke to the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen Volume 2 comic in which the League battle the Martians from H.G. Wells' War of the Worlds. This is also supposedly a hint of a possible sequel to the film.


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