My first bad review!
Alan Moore is one of my favourite authors of all time (if you count him as an actual author). His books are so genius and thrilling to read. Whenever I read one of his graphic novels, I can't put them down.
However, you better be careful when talking about movies based on Moore's work. Whilst some Alan Moore movies are excellent like V for Vendetta and the holy grail of comic book films, Watchmen, other Alan Moore-based films can go down the crapper pretty badly, and the perfect example of these types of films is League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.
I will admit that when this movie was first released, I enjoyed it. However, I was 8 at the time so my taste in films hadn't been properly developed yet. I've always been a fan of classic sci-fi/horror novels of the Victorian era and late 20th Century, so of course I was going to enjoy the movie, because I didn't know it was based off of a comic (albiet poorly), I just thought some guys decided to add classical characters of literature together in a movie and have them save the world.
So yes, let's discuss the film. I didn't read the graphic novel until after I saw the movie and of course the novel is better in every way.
The first point is that the storyline isn't even the same, I mean, there's altering a few parts of the novel, and then there's changing the whole book! In the novel, there's two different missions. The first mission of the League is to stop Fu Manchu in China Town from using the last known amount of cavorite (a formula that can allow objects to fly in H.G Wells' First Men in The Moon) to build an airship that could destory London and the second mission is to stop Prof. Moriarty (Sherlock Holme's arch-rival) from using the airship built by Fu Manchu to conquer Britain by force. The League's mission in the movie is to stop a criminal warlord named the Fantom (a.k.a Prof. Moriarty) from destroying Venice and to later stop the Fantom (who was in fact the League's employer, M, all along) from conquering the world with new advanced technology gained from the League. The only thing similar between these two completely different storyline's is that M is Moriarty in disguise.
Anyway, other problems about the movie include the fact that there's stuff added in the movie that wasn't in the book e.g. Tom Sawyer and Dorian Gray aren't in the novel. Tom Sawyer isn't even a good character anyway, he just tries to hit on Mina Harker and act like a big shot, when no-one gives a shit about him. Dorian Gray is also very overdramatic, like he;s trying to impersonate Jude Law and Johnny Depp at the same time. I like the novel Dorian Gray, but this guy just doesn't sell it.
As for the other characters, the acting isn't brilliant. The woman playing Mina Harker was terrible and I feel bad for saying this, but Sean Connery gave a pretty bad performance too as Alan Quartermain. Definately not the worst performance in the film though. I was also pissed that the Invisible Man isn't Hawley Griffin (the deranged rapist/murderer of the original H.G Wells novel) but a theif named Rodney Skinner who supposedly stole the invisibility formula after Griffin died. Griffin was my favourite League member too, so that really annoyed me. However, the reason why Griffin was changed to Skinner was because of copyright issues with H.G Wells' family. Seems like Wells had predicted that a bad movie involving one of his most famous characters would happen after he died, so his ghost left it;s grave and floated to the producers to say.
Producers: Oh my god, H.G Wells! Would you mind if we use the Invisible Man in our adaption of the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen?
H.G Wells: Allow me to answer by reciting a very famous quote from one of my novels..."GO F**K YOURSELVES!!!"
Ah, if only Wells did that. Alas, he did not. Now he can lay in his grave knwoing that his beloved character didn't get put in an awful film. However a rip-off of his beloved character was put in a bad film.
So my conclusion, as it's own movie, League of Extraoridnary Gentlemen is somewhat okay. It's not a masterpiece, in fact it's not even that good, but there have been worse films.
But as an adaption of Alan Moore's novel, it's atrocious. The story's changed heavily, not paying any respect to the novel and the characters are cardboard cut-outs of the originals.
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