Comic Book Busts: "The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen"
The last, and certainly least, in my Comic Book Busts series also could be Sean Connery's cinematic swan song. A double tragedy, indeed.
The 2003 dud "The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen" gets its inspiration from comic book maestro Alan Moore, but what appears on-screen could have been written by any Hollywood hack. The 19th century's great literary heroes (Tom Sawyer, Captain Nemo, etc.) band together to stop an evil mastermind bent on instigating war between European nations. Good premise, right? But Connery looks cranky here, and not in any character building way. He supposedly argued with the film's director, Stephen Norrington, during the shoot. Whoever won those arguments has a lot of explaining to do.
Connery's co-stars, including Shane West, are far from heroic, and the action set pieces are both stupifying and bland.
Connery insists he's retired now. He even turned down a role in the upcoming "Indiana Jones" sequel. He better jump back on a sound stage, and quick, before "The League of Extaordinary Gentlemen" becomes the bookend to a fine career.
Labels: Comic book movies, The League of Extraordinary Gentleman
posted by Toto @ 3:56 PM
1 Comments
Links to this post
1 Comments:
Gah!
I cannot disagree (and only partly-ashamedly acknowledge that I still like the film, much as I do with the similarly sub-mediocre "13th Warrior," which similarly forced the legendary Omar Sharif into retirement for a long while) and this work underscores my early posts regarding the great risk of comic-to-screen translations: having non-comic book people on the project.
the source material was smart, understated, and perhaps significantly, had a female in the lead role (Peta Wilson's character, nearly unrecognizable in the film); I imagine that A-lister Connery's presence required a rewrite of all of the character's storylines, coupled with the assumption that American audiences would not be sophisticated enough to pick up the 19th-century literary references of the source material, and the belief that the youth demographic needed a character to relate to themselves (hence, the otherwise unnecessary addition of Shane West's Sawyer).
so it goes...at least Nolan, hopefully, has freerer rein with DK, as he did with BB; my jury's out on Favreau's IM - his success have been with lighter fare
~ Dagnabbitt
Post a Comment
Links to this post:
Create a Link
<< Home