The league of extraordinary gentlemen movie review :: essays research papers

"The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen"Despite Sean Connery and some impressive nineteenth century gloom, this big-screen translation of Alan Moores culty comic-book series falls to earth with an incoherent splat.- - - - - - - - - - - -By Charles TaylorJuly 11, 2003 In the opening scene of "The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen," a armored combat vehicle plows through the elegant Victorian interiors of the Bank of England. In short order, we descry the destruction of an inn in Kenya, an enormous book-lined London sitting room, and the oculus of Venice, with the Basilica San Marco among the buildings reduced to rubble. This a destructo-thon for those with a taste for Old earth elegance. Theres no reason why "The League of Extraordinary Gentleman" has to be as bad as it is, considering the inspired pop premise of its source, Alan Moore and Kevin ONeills in writing(p) novel. The two installments that have appeared in book form so removed are a sort of col d daydream of popular lit. deposit at the end of the 19th century, the comics tell the story of a host of heroes assembled by British intelligence to fight various threats to the empire. The ingenious element is that all of these adventurers are characters from popular fiction of the era. Theres the aged Allen Quatermain (the adventurer from H. passenger Haggards "King Solomons Mines") Mina Harker, ne Murray (from "Dracula") H.G. Wells the Invisible existence Dr. Henry Jekyll and his alter ego Edward Hyde (who takes the form of a grotesque behemoth) and master key Nemo (from Jules Vernes "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea"). Their contact with the British political relation is an ancestor of James Bond and, as in the Bond books and movies, the result of British intelligence is M, and his initial is a hint at his let fictional identity. Moore and ONeill use these characters to play a sophisticated version of the fantasies kids despoil in about whe ther Superman could defeat Spider-Man. The graphic novels are indite and drawn in a style that mingles the formality of Victorian literature with contemporary raunch and bloodthirstiness. When Hyde goes on a rampage we get to slang him ripping bad guys quite literally in two, or masticate on their limbs. The Invisible Man takes advantage of the sexual liberties open to a man who cant be seen.