Set at the turn of the century, the League is a tale of sadness, high action, and strange heroes in a race against time to stop a madman from bringing the world into war. The British Empire decides that they need to form a secret alliance of extraordinary people to avert war, so they bring in Allan Quatermain (dashing, pulp adventurer), Mina Murray (blah blah… Dracula… blah blah…), a Invisible Man (not THE invisible man), Dr. Jekyll (and Mr. Hyde), Tom Sawyer (just an American), Captain Nemo (he’s a kung fu pirate), and Dorian Gray (he owns a painting). This strange crew combines to stop the mysterious madman known as Fantom. Through a variety of adventures, explosions, and boring dialogue, they save the day, prevent the war, and manage to preserve their uniqueness.
Ultimately, the movie failed for me – here’s why:
Heroes
Our heroes turn out to be not so interesting. First off, we have Sean Connery playing Allan Quatermain, an old adventurer with a dark past. Then, we have Captain Nemo, a crazy scientist with a dark past. Next, we have Mina Murray, a woman with a dark past. Then, there is Dorian Gray, dark past. And so on and on… There is even an entire boring ass scene in the middle of the film where they all walk around the ship, share their dark pasts with each other, and take turns staring off into space with sad looks. It’s boring. It sucked.
I need to mention a invisible man again, because this was not THE invisible man. Apparently, they couldn’t get the rights to THE invisible man, so they wrote up just another invisible man who stole the recipe from the original invisible man. An interesting fact about this invisible man is that he disappears a lot. For example, he disappears for at least half of the movie, until he happens to reappear in time to lead our crew of heroes to the secret evil hideout.
Captain Nemo is the only slightly engaging character in the movie, but he turns out just be a kung fu warrior. Tom Sawyer, the American representative in the film, is boring, and I failed to see why he was allowed to join the group (no, being American does not mean you are extraordinary by default). To thicken the plot, he has the hots for Miss Mina, even after watching her suck the blood from some poor mook. And yes, Tom brings a one liner to every scene (maybe that was his gift).
Dr. Jekyll existed for no apparent reason. When he turned into Mr. Hyde, he becomes a homicidal maniac. I know if I were forming a league of heroes to save the world, I would hire a homicidal maniac. You can’t save the world without one. Every scene with Mr. Hyde looks like it was written in just to make sure he was useful. Unfortunately, all of those scenes sucked.
Villains
Our villain in the flick is the appropriately named Fantom. You see, when I heard the name Fantom, I wondered if the film was going to have some sort of crazy composer back from the grave sort of villain. The other thought I had was that this villain was going to be like a phantom, hard to find and always in the shadows.
I was wrong.
The super mastermind, Fantom, turns out to be an idiot. No really. When he sends his gangs of mooks to rob banks, blow up dirigibles, and blow up other things, he decides in his infinite villainous state to tag along. Yes, that is right. Rather than trust his henchmen to do the dirty work, he follows, either making sure they are doing what he hired them to do or hoping that someone will beat him in hand to hand combat so he can be thrown in jail. There is no explanation for this. He is an absolute idiot villain.
Furthermore, his mad schemes make no sense. He robs a bank in England to convince them darn Brits that Germany doesn’t like them. Then he blows up dirigibles in Germany to convince the Germans that the Brits don’t like them. (Was all of this really necessary? Don’t they already hate each other?) Next, he tries to blow up Venice to plunge the world into war because the world particularly treasures Venice. All of this is a ruse to form the League so he can steal samples from each of the heroes to duplicate their powers.
Before I forget, the villain also wears a mask, makeup, fake hair, and fur coat to hide his identity. He sucks. (And when his true identity is revealed, I didn’t care.)
Explosions
The solution to any problem the League might face is simple – blow it up. When Venice is being blown to smithereens, the League saves about 25% of it by setting off another bomb ahead of the tidal wave of “blowing-upness”. I like this. In other words, if you want to stop a nuclear bomb from destroying your home town, just set off another nuclear bomb nearby, and the two bombs will distract each other, make out, and cancel the destruction.
The Nautilus
Captain Nemo’s big ship – and I do mean big – sucks. The ten story high, aircraft carrier wide ships pops up in the middle of one of London’s tiny harbors. I hadn’t realized that the sea around London is several miles deep. Furthermore, the Nautilus has the crazy ability to go up rivers into mainland China and glide easily through the canals of Venice. In other words, it sucked.
Laws of Physics Defied
The laws of physics were just not defied here – they were dressed up in a little sailor outfit and forced to sit on an old creepy dude’s lap. The whopping scene was where Allan Quatermain leaps out of a moving car and lands flat-footed. The car was easily doing 60-90 mph, yet Mr. Quatermain doesn’t even fake a roll. He just lands on his feet and walks away. The bastard.
In Conclusion
I could go on, but I won’t. This film is terrible. It failed on so many levels. I couldn’t enjoy it. In fact, my friend and I spent the next two hours laughing about it. There are moments that don’t make any sense, moments that defy the laws of physics, and characters that plain suck. In other words, don’t go watch this movie. Wait until video before you sate your curiosity.
For you gamers out there, the movie doesn’t give much good inspiration. Some of the characters could be good groundwork for villains in a pulp game (Captain Nemo especially), but you would do better by just reading the book the character is in. The technology in the film is not interesting, and the mad scheme is nothing worth writing home about. There is pretty good set design and visuals in some areas, which might serve a little inspiration, but I would then just recommend the original comic book by Alan Moore.
