{"id":23,"date":"2003-07-11T20:04:08","date_gmt":"2003-07-12T01:04:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/?p=23"},"modified":"2003-07-11T20:04:08","modified_gmt":"2003-07-12T01:04:08","slug":"a_league_of_the","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2003\/07\/11\/a_league_of_the.html","title":{"rendered":"A League of Their Own"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/exec\/obidos\/ASIN\/B00005JM59?&#038;tag=davedoesthebl-20\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/images.amazon.com\/images\/P\/B00005JM59.01.MZZZZZZZ.jpg\" align=right border=0 hspace=10 \/><\/a>Through an odd confluence of events, Margie and I ended up at loose ends, while Katherine was still in day care at Margie&#8217;s office.  So, among other things, we went out and grabbed a matinee &#8212; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/exec\/obidos\/ASIN\/B00005JM59?&#038;tag=davedoesthebl-20\"><i>The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen<\/i><\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Before we get to the details, a couple of notes.<\/p>\n<p>First off, despite the ad campaign, this is not <i>The League of Extraordinary Supporting Actors to Sean Connery<\/i>.  While Connery gets the lion&#8217;s share of scenes (and more than that of publicity), the movie actually does a decent job of maintaining a large ensemble cast (with more LXG members than even the Alan Moore graphic novel).<\/p>\n<p>Second, forget the graphic novel, at least for the duration of the film (then go out and buy it or read it and get a far better work).  The movie is eye candy, some mindless (and sometimes kinda stupid) summer entertainment.  I&#8217;d be (pleasantly) surprised if a sequel ever gets made, no matter how much one was set up at the end.  But in either case, dwelling too much on the differences (vast) between the graphic novel and the movie will only be irksome.  Take the movie for what it is. <\/p>\n<p>For more &#8230; SPOILERS BELOW.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Random bits, in no particular order:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The film is certainly action-packed, even when the action makes no sense.\n<li>The movie is riddled with computer graphics, some of it lingered on or repeated far too often (endless shots of the gorgeous <i>Nautilus<\/i>, for example, or endless repetition of the automobile-zooming-through-crashing-Venice).  In other cases, the interface between live action and CG is not handled very well &#8212; crashing walls of water that people run through the middle of, for example.  <\/p>\n<li>There are odd, even inexplicable bits in the plot.  The <i>Nautilus <\/i>making its way through the canals of Venice is laughable.  The whole &#8220;Venice is all collapsing, but it&#8217;s really tumbling like dominoes, except that we keep seeing it all falling apart all over, but knocking down just one building will stop it&#8221; bit was &#8230; well, okay, fine, whatever you say &#8230;<\/p>\n<li>While the CG is overused but effective, there are various bits that are less so.  Where landscapes are done through matte paintings, they look &#8230; well, a lot like matte paintings.  The tiger walking through the snow is apallingly bad.  The CG-faced Skinner is interesting; the white-make-up-with-dark-stubble Skinner is amateurish.<\/p>\n<li>I found it interesting what they felt compelled to explain, and what they decided the audience would understand.  Captain Nemo passes without question (though some folks will be surprised to see him portrayed as Indian).  Allan Quartermain&#8217;s exploits are mentioned very briefly in passing (he&#8217;s enough of an archetype that even folks who&#8217;ve never seen the movies, let alone read the books, can still figure out who he is).  Everyone knows about Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.  The Invisible Man&#8217;s Return gets explication (though it doesn&#8217;t need to be).  Dorian Grey&#8217;s peculiar &#8220;curse&#8221; gets explained along the way.  That Tom Sawyer grows up to be a government agent and gunslinger seems to need no annotation.  Oddly enough, neither does the backstory of James Moriarty, though I suspect that the name of Harker would be at least as familiar, and she gets a full (and clumsy) biography.\n<p>(Okay, that wasn&#8217;t entirely correct.  Part of what allowed the original graphic novel, and this movie, is that the various properties involved have fallen into public domain.  All, it seems, except the Invisible Man &#8212; who is, you note, never referred to as such, and whose canonical name of Dr. Hawley Griffin is retconned away.)<\/p>\n<li>The director and editor get around any messiness about the various battles and fighting by simply keeping the camera shaking, the shots short, and the air full of paper\/snow.  It&#8217;s a clever enough idea, but at times it ends up obscuring stuff you should be able to see, and simply becomes annoying.  <\/p>\n<li>I can certainly see getting the DVD for this &#8212; if there is a lengthy (and there should be) selection of deleted scenes.<\/p>\n<li>So Mina is a vampire.  She has an odd collection of vampire powers, including standing out in the sunshine with evidently no problems at all.  Given the general popularity of vampires, and the &#8220;standards&#8221; of what they can do, the distinction or difference should have been described.<\/p>\n<li>The basic plot (SUPER MEGA-SPOILERS) of Moriarty seeking an arms race that he can profit from, and, in particular, &#8220;stealing&#8221; the powers of the LXG membership, is actually pretty clever.  Though the scope of the story is both broader but less grand (and less rich) than the graphic novel, this bit of plot works well.  Unfortunately, one of the key aspects to the book &#8212; that nobody in the group has any good reason to trust each other, and every reason not to &#8212; gets a few faltering references, but quickly fades into obscurity. Ah, well.<\/p>\n<li>The two best lines belong to Stuart Townsend as as Dorian Gray &#8212; &#8220;I&#8217;m &#8230; complicated,&#8221; and &#8220;We could be at this all night.&#8221;  <\/p>\n<li>Naseeruddin Shah as Capt. Nemo gets some good moves, and some good lines, but never really gets a chance to gel as the complex character he should be.  Peta Wilson&#8217;s Mina Harker alternates between quietly capable and sensuously brutal; as in the graphic novel, her character is key, and she gets some of the best (swarm of bats) effects in the flick; it&#8217;s a shame that, unlike the calm leader of the GN League, here she is simply the token female.  Tony Curran plays Skinner, the <s>Invisible Man<\/s> invisible man, as the rogue-who-find-a-hero-within, but without much success as either (it&#8217;s difficult to act well when you&#8217;re either invisible or badly made-up).  Stuart Townsend as Dorian Gray is the most enjoyable &#8220;nasty&#8221; member of the League; his addition to the canon actually works.  Shane West plays the inserted-for-American-sensibilities Tom Sawyer, Secret Agent, as a charming and affable guy who basically gets to be the young counterpoint to Connery.  Jason Flemyng as Dr Jekyll competently plays the bi-polar and schizophrenic riff ironically more recognizable today as Bruce Banner\/Incredible Hulk (the Mr Hyde CG is alternately interesting, realistic, and goofy); his &#8220;redemption&#8221; early on seems a bit facile.  Richard Roxburgh as M is, sadly, only moderately intriguing, even in his more meaty appearances later on in the film.\n<p>In sum, the players do a competent job, and what characterization they&#8217;re given (a surprising amount for the size of the cast) is done reasonably well.  That the roles will be (one hopes) merely footnotes to further careers is not necessarily their fault.<\/ul>\n<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/exec\/obidos\/ASIN\/1563898586?&#038;tag=davedoesthebl-20\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/images.amazon.com\/images\/P\/1563898586.01.MZZZZZZZ.jpg\" align=right border=0 hspace=10 \/><\/a>The Alan Moore\/Kevin O&#8217;Neill <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/exec\/obidos\/ASIN\/1563898586?&#038;tag=davedoesthebl-20\" target=\"_blank\">graphic novel<\/a>  is a classic in modern comics &#8212; literate, erudite, ripping fun, bitterly realistic amid its gaslamp fantasy.  It&#8217;s worth borrowing, even more worth buying.  If there&#8217;s anything interesting or intriguing to you about the idea of blending various literary fantasy characters into a dark Victorian &#8220;ripping yarn,&#8221; then the original is a must.  It&#8217;s a hearty stew to the movie&#8217;s popcorn.<\/p>\n<p>That the movie doesn&#8217;t live anywhere up to its source is, perhaps, understandable.  The real LXG is far darker, far more complex, and, frankly, Sean Connery wouldn&#8217;t be caught dead playing <i>that <\/i>Quartermain.  As a summer release, though, LXG is just fine: some nice eye candy, some mildly thought-provoking plotting, some decent acting, and a flick that may be forgotten by next summer, but which will certainly find its way  into various geeky fanboy DVD collections.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Through an odd confluence of events, Margie and I ended up at loose ends, while Katherine was still in day care at Margie&#8217;s office. So, among other things, we went&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-media"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":340,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2003\/04\/30\/golf.html","url_meta":{"origin":23,"position":0},"title":"Golf","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 30-Apr-03 12:59pm","format":false,"excerpt":"An odd confluence ... Monday night, I met with some other folks from my church to help organize a golf tournament. Last night, I signed up Margie for golf lessons...","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Golf&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Golf","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/golf"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":138687,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2019\/05\/04\/a-day-in-the-life-4-may-2019.html","url_meta":{"origin":23,"position":1},"title":"A Day in the Life: 4 May 2019","author":"***Dave","date":"Sat 4-May-19 11:49pm","format":false,"excerpt":"It's an odd confluence of events and commemorations.","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Family&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Family","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/personal\/family"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/12\/calendar.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":13159,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2008\/07\/07\/final_bachelor_movie_revi.html","url_meta":{"origin":23,"position":2},"title":"Final Bachelor Movie Reviews","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 7-Jul-08 10:34pm","format":false,"excerpt":"With Margie and Katherine coming home tomorrow, here are a few last things I watched before they did. Tin Man (2007) : For all that Sci-Fi channel's original programming tends...","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Animation \/ Cartoons&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Animation \/ Cartoons","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/media\/media-cartoons"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/images\/stars4.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":7051,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2004\/11\/05\/media_penetrati.html","url_meta":{"origin":23,"position":3},"title":"Media penetration","author":"***Dave","date":"Fri 5-Nov-04 2:12pm","format":false,"excerpt":"\"What movie are we going to see tonight?\" Katherine asked. I stood up tall and did a big muscle flex. \"Spider-Man!\" \"Nooooo ...\" I started running in place really quickly....","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Disney\/Pixar&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Disney\/Pixar","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/media\/franchises\/disney"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5157,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2003\/10\/22\/the_love_that_d.html","url_meta":{"origin":23,"position":4},"title":"The love that dare not beep its name","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 22-Oct-03 8:44pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Margie and I ended up both picking up Katherine at day care (long story). Which meant that we drove back home in two cars through rush hour. Kitten was riding...","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Cars&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Cars","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/cars"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":9456,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2006\/07\/02\/party_time_exce.html","url_meta":{"origin":23,"position":5},"title":"Party time, excellent","author":"***Dave","date":"Sun 2-Jul-06 9:41pm","format":false,"excerpt":"So we had our Fourth Second of July party and grilling soiree today. Between conflicted schedules and other odd timings, it turned out to be a small group -- Margie...","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Food &amp; Drink&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Food &amp; Drink","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/food-drink"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}