Era : Begining of the Industrial Age, England
Situation : An invincible meglomaniac forcing countries to go to war by masked attacks on each of its cities.
Solution : Take a set of characters (who should be ’’alive’’ in that period) from the literary books and bring the together to fight this mysterious & formidable oponent
Result : The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen
The Background
(Sean connery) Allan Quatermain (King Solomon Mines, by H.Rider Haggard) is now a retired adventurer who is reliving the glorious past of the Empire in the comfort of Brittania Club in the interiors of Nairobi, with a bunch of Her Majesty’s expats.
(Naseeruddin Shah) Captain Nemo (20, 000 Leagues Under the Seas, by Jules Verne) is regarded as a Pirate but the very existence of him and his enormous Nautilus was a mystery for the civilized world, from which he has cut himself off and lives in the depths of the vast oceans. Here he is given an Indian twist (not sure if Jules Verne portrayed him Indian) and attacks the imperialist British ships.
(Peta Wilson) Mina (Murray) Harker (Dracula by Bram Stoker, The Letters of Mina Harker, by Dodie Bellamy) was the intelligent and courageous scientist who destroyed Count Dracula alongwith Doctor Van Helsing. But the King of Vampires managed to sink his teeth just before that thus turning her blood impure with the paranormal powers of a master vampire. The sheer strength of her will and past helped her to conqer the urges of the undead at the sametime retaining the powers she inherited. Nevertheless she has been ostericized by the society hence lives a lonely life.
(Tony Curran) Rodney Skinner otherwise known as the Invisible Man (The Invisible Man by HG Wells) who stole the serum from a brilliant scientist and turned himself Invisible and thus an invincible theif. To his astonishment he later realised that this process is irreversible and ever since has resigned to this fact and trusts none other than himself.
(Stuart Townsend) Dorian Gray (The Picture of Dorian Gray, by Oscar Wilde) the handsome young man whose portrait picture painted by the famous artist Basil Hallward was his secret of life, practically that is. Fear of death made him to wish that the portrait shall age and wrinkle all the while he shall remain young forever. From a book lent to him by Lord Henry he used the black occult magic which transformed his wish to reality. Gray cannot be scarred, wounded or even killed. Coupled with a dark mind and guiltless conscience Dorian became the deadliest opponent and through long years he has lived, he has learnt the darkest of all secrets and knowledge, known to exist at that time.
(Shane West) Agent Tom Sawyer (The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain) has grown up since his exploration along the Mississippi river and his courage and quest for thrills and danger landed him a job in the then newly formed U.S Secret Service as a spy.
(Jason Flemyng) Dr.Jekyll/Mr.Hyde (Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson) are the dual egos of a brilliant scientist whose experiment on himself with a serum pulled all his darkest thoughts and anger out of his mind and made an unstoppable beast who calls himself Edward Hyde.
The Story
A masked man who calls himself The Fantom has avowed to bring death and destruction on the civilized society and their governments only to conquer them and rule the whole world (very typical as always). Her Majesty’s Intelligence agent, M (Richard Roxburgh) recruits these seven heroes to stop and kill the warlord and save the world. In return each is promised what was eluding them for ages.
Quatermain is lured to give a final fight before the sun sets on the Empire of Brittanica. Rather an explosion of his favourite retreat in Nairobi forces him to take the job to avoid the destruction, which seems to have taken his scent, to wipe out this african city.
Nemo is lured with the promise that Britain will vacate India for his Nautilus and should this mission succeed.
Mina is offered a cure for her vampire blood so that she can mix back into the society which has outcasted her.
Similarly Skinner will get a cure for his invisibility and Jekyll from his dual entity. While Dorian is swayed by the charms of his erstwhile love-interest Mina, Sawyer is appointed by the U.S Secret Service for this mission.
The Plot
Leaders of major countries are ensembling in Venice, Italy and Fantom plans to sabotage the conference and sink the city with series of explosions. The League is supposed to reach Venice and foil this catastrophic plot. Nemo’s built-from-scratch Nautilus, The Sword of the Ocean, will reach them to Venice and with leadership of Quatermain the league attempts to avoid the disaster and try to kill Fantom. But it is the ’’Gifts/Curses’’ of each member that casts doubt on each other. Ironically to succeed they should trust each other. Nemo is wary of Skinner for his invisibility and carefull about Mr.Hyde who almost damages the mighty Palace on sea. Now, let us analyse the movie.
Story (4/5)
Unique. This one word is enough to describe the story which is not the run-of-the-mill comic strip relived on screen which seems to be fad nowadays. On the contrary the characters are drawn from hugely famous literary works created by equally magnificient authors. Then some tinkering here and there to suit each to this year (1889). But it is the climax which seems to be way too dramatised and stretched.
Plot (3/5)
Evil - lord - plans - to - take - the - world. Hero(es) - thwart - the - attempt - save - the - world. Nothing more, Nothing less. It is the regular Hollywood Martini - shaken not stirred. Only that they have added a lemon twist of assorted characters. Otherwise it is pretty much bland and well trodden road in movie history.
Action (3/5)
There are some slick action scenes in this movie. Especially the fight in the Strahov Library, Prague Castle. Absolutely spectacular fighting sequence.
Three people steal the show: Nemo with his sword, Dorian with bullets ploughing through his body, and Mina at her vampire best. Even the venice car chase was awesome. But one major problem in all the action sequence: pathetic editing. To make the sequences look lightning speed, Matrix slowed down the frames. In LXG it is in the reverse!!! Each person gets hardly 75 frames that is less than 3 seconds!! We can understand the predicament of the director, he has to fit in 7 people equally important in one fighting sequence. But in the end the whole sequence looks like a street dog fight where you end up wondering which is fighting which!!! Now imagine the same dog fight happening in a dark street!! Its so dark in all these fighting sequences!!! No it was not the problem of the VCD.