I have looked forward to seeing it but the flood of bad press put me off. Is there anything that would make the trip to the theater worth while?
I saw it and enjoyed it. I had no familiarity with the comic and only knew the characters from the original source material. As I approached it with a blank slate I could accept it for what it was, which is a stardard issue Hollywood action movie, where the laws of physics and logic don’t apply to the movie’s heroes. As a movie it was better than Charlie’s Angels 2 (how’s that for damning with faint praise) except for lacking Lucy Liu.
I dl’d it earlier today, but the quality was kinda crappy, so I only saw the first 30 minutes or so. I agree with PatrickM. Another ‘The Rock’, ‘Con Air’, ‘Armageddon’, blockbuster, special effects summer popcorn movie. I’ll prolly pay $10 to see it on the big screen when it opens here.
If you go in expecting a halfway decent summer action flick, you won’t be let down too much. And there are some really nice effects sequences.
Saw it with some friends this weekend. Sucked. Terribly. We were actually laughing at the pure badness of it. The guy who suggested it kept apologizing for making us come. Stay away!
<shrug> I rather liked it as brainless fluff. But then, I’ve never read the comic book, and I’ll sit through anything with Sean Connery in it. I’m also a big Oscar Wilde fan, so I was rather annoyed about what they did with Dorian.
It’s fun, and I enjoyed it. It’s nothing like the comics series (which I read and loved first) but on it’s own it’s a perfectly fun movie. Check it out if you’re in the mood for a madcap adventure film and then go pick up the graphic novel.
I liked the movie more than I expected & now I plan to buy the graphic novel(s) as I know they are so much better.
btw, Call me Ishmael. LOL
I ranted and raved about how terrible this movie was going to be, and how unfair that the studios are feeding us this crap. I ended up getting dragged to it on the opening day. It was a lot better than I expected, but keep in mind that I thought this would be a huge steaming pile of crap the likes of which the world had never seen. I ended up enjoying a lot of the action sequences, and once I ignored all the, you know, stupid stuff, it was actually sor of ok. In a way.
Key question: is it better than The Avengers? And as importantly, did you actually like The Avengers? I hated that movie so much, both for being so bad and for pissing on such a great license. Since then I’ve been very wary of big franchise blockbuster movies starring Sean Connery.
I liked it. Good eye-candy. Loved what they did with the Nautilaus. Good summer action movie. Go see it. Have fun. Better than Armageddon. Here’s hoping it ushers in a slew of big budget ‘steam-punk’ movies.
Bear in mind that I was, like several above posters, was expecting a steaming pile of Wild, Wild West but I actually liked the changes from Moore’s graphic novel (which I felt was too graphic).
Never did see me the Avengers.
I’m with Sol on this one. I need to know if the people who liked League also liked The Avengers.
My husband went to see it and said it wasn’t that bad. He also thought Kangaroo Jack wasn’t that bad either. He did think The Avengers sucked ass, though.
Yes, it’s better than the Avengers. I’m not sure that’s saying much, though.
My vote:fun flick to watch on a hot summer afternoon. Isn’t that what it’s supposed to be?
I just got home from paying to see this crappy excuse for a movie.
I know nothing of the comic, so I came in with a clean slate.
The effects were terrible. We were doing “invisible man” effects like you see in LXG in my high school drama class. Blue screen basics.
Mr. Hyde was possibly the worst use of latex since Trojan came out with its “slimline”.
You ever get one of those pangs in your gut that tells you that a bowel movement is coming, but it isn’t really pressing? I got one of those right after the heroes entered M’s lair. I opted to leave and have a leisurely ride home and take a dump rather than to stay for the rest of the movie.
Quick review: Too many fights, not enough characterization.
It did LOOK great though; the Nautilus and the scenes in Venice were pretty cool. Unfortunately, not too much survived from the great graphic novels by Alan Moore. The story is muddled and there’s an ending that screams “SEQUEL!”. Don’t hold your breath.
Saw it last night.
Hated it.
HATED it.
They took what should have been an interesting, unique world, which could have been the setting for a fun and original movie, and they ironed out the idiosyncracies and made it exactly like everything else.
The story takes place in 1899. There should be no airplanes, no automobiles, no computers, no radio, nothing like that. But the movie has a frickin’ remote controlled homing rocket, for crying out loud.
I’m sure the filmmakers would respond, “Look how creative we were in working with the limitations of the setting! Wasn’t it neat how we figured out how to make a tracking monitor so the submarine could follow the little ship! Pretty creative huh!”
Bullshit. True creativity means you tell a compelling story without any of the conventional trappings. Creative bankruptcy, on the other hand, means you stretch the premise to fit in a car chase because you don’t know how to make an action movie without one.
Did I mention I hated it?
I liked it. A friend of mine made the following analogy: LoXG (the movie) is to the original comics as Super-Friends is to Kingdom Come.
I recommend seeing it at a matinee.
I hate to revive this thread after it’s long-forgotten, but I hated this movie even more.
However much Cervaise hated it, I hated it just as much if not more. I was expecting the worst, and it failed to live up to that – by being too dull even to enjoy as a bad movie.
Whenever I tried to think of something positive about it, I was met with a counter-example. The best I could come up with was that the shots of the cityscapes at the beginning were kind of cool, and then when they played the cheesy Exposition Phonograph Record movie, I remembered why I thought they were cool – because they were lifted almost directly from Moulin Rouge, which did it far, far better.
What I hate seeing is the claim that it’s okay if you don’t compare it to the comic book, or that it’s okay if you turn your brain off and ignore the plot holes and anachronisms and just take it as an action movie. No, no, no!
First, strip away all that, and it still fails. The effects are marginal in places and horrible in others. Hyde and the Super-Hyde were just ludicrously bad. And the gaping plot holes were so huge I couldn’t even sustain interest in the last 30 minutes or so, because it was all too meaningless.
Then, think about the anachronisms. They keep having titles that remind us it’s supposed to be 1899, and then do everything possible to set the story in 1914. They treat everything about the source material, including the date, as a nuisance they have to work around. Sure, if you accept the rest of the wacky premise, you could say that Nemo could have built a car. But why? Why go to all the trouble of being nonsensical for a car chase, especially one that’s not at all interesting? And why, for the love of God, have a car chase set in Venice?!?
Then, the source material. I think of it this way: because of this, there will never be a real League of Extraordinary Gentlemen movie. A great concept, pissed away. And again, they used up the concept just to completely waste it:
Quatermain - They have this 70-year-old pulp hero who’s a master marksman, and give him almost all of the hand-to-hand fight scenes!
Mina - Moore took the shallow caraciature from Dracula and turned her into a complex, progressive, strong character that felt appropriate for both 1999 and 1899. The movie turned her back into a sexist caricature, accompanied by horribly cheesy effects and a total lack of understanding of the vampire mythos.
Nemo - they sucked the character right out of him, both the Moore and Wells versions. Made him totally dull.
Mr. Hyde - they made him controllable, again completely missing the whole point of the character.
The Invisible Man - they made him a good guy.
Dorian Grey - why the hell they even bothered, I don’t know.
Tom Sawyer - When I first heard about their adding him to the story, my reaction was, “cool!” That’s just the kind of thing Moore might do if forced to include an American – the character became a detective, right? Well, no. He became a cipher, and never had the opportunity or the need to, you know, detect anything because everyone in the movie explained everything they were doing at every moment because they assumed the audience was as stupid as the writers were.
To answer my own question above: yes, it is better than The Avengers. But then, that was the movie that first broke my spirit – before I’d seen that, I thought that even the most inept Hollywood filmmaker would be able to succeed with great source material. The Avengers proved me wrong, and The League just cemented that.
Oh yeah, that’s right: Is this the first time since Bram Stoker’s original story that the vampire wasn’t bothered by sunlight? It was really weird seeing Mina out on the sun deck of the Nautilus.
And one other nitpick: If the Nautilus is three or four times longer than the average city block in Venice, how the fuck does it turn?
Well, now, that’s a strong statement, pardner. We might just need to have a hate-off. 