The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen

I saw this one with my family.

This is usually a mistake, for a multitude of reasons. When I go alone or with friends, I can revel in the low humor, the exorbitant effects budget, and the crass banality of it all. When I go with my family, I�m on edge, waiting to be judged for my desire to see this movie. Any minute I�ll be on the receiving end of a disgusted exclamation of �you actually watch this crap?�

The answer is yes, I watch this crap. In fact, I revel in it. I revel in the mindless, unnecessary violence. I revel in the gratuitous nudity and needless sex scenes. I smear the filth of its stilted dialogue and wooden plot exposition all over myself like it�s Herbal Essence body wash.

You know, the fruity kind (1).

That�s one reason. The other being my sister. No, not Deb, the other one. Catherine is possibly the most sarcastic human being ever to walk the earth, living or undead (she has a slight tendency toward immolation; we�re working on it), and she feels the need to comment on the various flaws of a movie, both during and after its run. Admittedly, she�s often quite witty about it, but when you�re trying desperately to suspend disbelief, laying out the movie�s flaws on a slab for dissection tends to suck most of the enjoyment out of even an okay movie. Sorta like my father and the communal soda (2). All in all, heckling a first-run movie lowers the fun quotient.

Wait until you�ve seen it a few times before you mock it.

All that said, this movie deserved heckling. LXG (the oh-so-clever advertising executives are once again tried and found guilty of heinous crimes against acronyms) has a fairly interesting premise: what if all these famous literary heroes and heroines actually existed, and crossed each other�s paths (3)? Throw in an equally famous baddy with a plan for world destruction/domination, an FX budget larger than the GNP of Belgium, and hey�you�ve got yourself a blockbuster. What could go wrong? The answer: many things.

I understand that this was originally a graphic novel, but Catherine, goddess of sarcasm, pointed out what should have been painfully obvious. This is a fanfic, people. Characters from Dracula, Tom Sawyer, King Solomon�s Mines, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, and others all show up. The only difference between this and the one about Ron and Harry�s forbidden summer of damp, feral lust (4) is that the characters are in the public domain. The authors are all too dead to complain. But as long as we�re throwing other people�s intellectual property into the ring, I�ve got an idea for the sequel to LXG. What if Harry Potter, Indiana Jones, and Blade all teamed up to battle Sauron for the One Ring (5)! It�d be great!

Hey, stranger things have happened in the intellectual quicksand that is web-published fandom.

Anyway, the rest of the movie. In a movie like this, the biggest draw is the effects; the actors are there mainly to be effected on and to occasionally shout things like �No!� and �Tommy!� So how were the effects? Good. I didn�t really see anything original, though the Nautilus was cool. I think Captain Nemo�s beard was computer generated, though�no human could grow a beard like that. Well, and not be bludgeoned to death by ferrets hurled by superstitious tribesmen.

Other than the effects, which are only middling for their cost, and the ferrets, which I understand to be quite superior ferrets, this movie has very little going for it. Although Sean Connery will one day lead the legions of the righteous against the immortal gecko kings holding the world in thrall, even he can�t make these lines sound good. Exposition is delivered with all the grace of leftover chili being dropped into the toilet, and most of the actors are just going through the motions (6). Don�t get me wrong, there are several moderately amusing one-liners, but they hardly make up for the remainder of this dreck.

One of the only things that saves this movie from totally sucking is the fact that they actually manage to avoid one of the most venerable and hated clich�s�the villain is not related to the main characters in any way (7).

Now, after bashing this movie for the entire review, I now give it a conditional pimping. Go see it if you have friends with similarly low tastes, you have nothing better to do, or if someone else is paying. It�s not worth it otherwise.

PS: I bet if you looked long enough, you could find a Babylon 5/Passions crossover fanfic somewhere. Maybe I should offer a reward to someone who could find one (8).

(1)Eric, you don�t bathe. Please quit acting as if you even know what body wash is.*

*You can use Body Wash in a sweat tent.

(2)Don�t get me started on that. F@$!ing old man�

(4)Oh, Eric. Everyone can tell that you�re not a slash fan because of that little comment. It�s Harry and Draco, Eric, Harry and Draco!*

*You say that like my lack of slash credentials should be a source of shame . . .

(5)Throw in Buffy and I�m there.

(7)Actually, it might have been better if the villain had been related to the hero. Sean Connery�s son? Can we say �rowr�?*

*If this had been a Bond movie, the villain would�ve been Connery�s friend who was killed in the first scene. Yeah, that would�ve been cool.

(8)We�ll give you fuzzy bunny slippers and a funny hat.*

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