The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen

The most interesting and appealing thing about the whole movie is precisely the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. The characters are interesting, but unfortunately poorly developed and with weak psychology. The visual style is quite over-the-top, yet some action scenes are breathtaking (the opening in the hotel, the library) and Sean Connery is fortunately back in fantastic form. Unfortunately, the plot is quite weak and in the end, everything collapses like Venice under by several kilograms of dynamite. I don't really care about the submarine in narrow canals, but there are already quite a few plot clichés. Dr. Hyde was also extremely poorly done, and he's not even close to being the Hulk. As a pure action caper, it's too grandiose and theatrical, as a big epic comic-book adaptation, it's too linear and narratively inadequate. A frantic mix of everything, but solid as undemanding entertainment. (18.09.2006)

This falls somewhere between one and two stars, but a film that insults the viewer’s intelligence doesn’t deserve any leniency. The best thing about The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen is the gigantic submarine plying the canals of Venice. And the worst thing about the film is that not only the journalists at the screening were clutching their heads, but my 14-year-old brother was too. This is the dumbest and most bloated big-budget movie of its kind. Wild Wild West is a cinematic gem by comparison. (17.07.2003)

This film has passable visual effects and production design and that's about the only thing that can be praised at least a little bit. The plot is about what I would expect from popcorn entertainment. I didn't mind the giant submarine going around in the canals of Venice, a bit of exaggeration doesn't kill anyone and it's a comic book adaptation. But the chain demolition of houses in Venice was a slap in the face by the screenwriter. The Americans could have also spared us the forced “good boy” and representative of the heroes from the United States Tom Sawyer and Connery's daddy instincts. And why Nemo looked like Osama is also a mystery to me; the filmmakers apparently never saw the classic drawings by De Neuville, Verne's court illustrator. The result is a standard Hollywood prefabricated film, an ordinary one-off, which I swallowed, but I fell into a little bit of a stupor and a few minutes later I didn't know about it. Sean Connery promised Václav Havel that if the film turned out good, he would arrange a world premiere in Prague. And it happened. I feel like Mr. Connery is starting to lose his mind. (08.12.2003)

A demonstration of how to screw up a film. The theme provides so much poetry, humor and possible games that a clever director and screenwriter would be exulted by it, but Norrington and Robinson somehow noticed only the passing gloss. Lots of "well-known companies" from the canon of world literature and film fly across the screen, but apart from the names, we can't find anything extraordinary about them - they are just overwhelmed schemes without any magic or energy. Captain Nemo's terrorist beard, Dorian Gray's worldly goatee, Tom Sawyer's sparrow's nest... and then what? Then nothing; a wasteland, bad acting. If it doesn't work in the League, it can't even work in the surrounding units, and Norrington closes the store without a fight. The film is literally soaked in crappy digital effects that reduce the colorful and magical world of fin de siècle to a bunch of pre-rendered art. The story is absolutely bland, the villain is flat and Sir Connery's performance is, forgive me, completely necrophilic. The Americans are butchering well-known literary figures with great bravura; however, the British skunk Norrington puts the crown on it. Crap. Dreadful. (02.05.2006)

It’s too bad that I am familiar with the comic books - otherwise I might have added a star. The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen is worth seeing for the great Connery, ILM's special effects, a great steam car and... And I don't think there's anything else. It’s too bad that they didn’t use Moore's comics, in which every field is literally overflowing with ideas. At least it went by quickly and was entertaining in a relaxing way. (16.10.2009)