In theory, I loved The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. In reality, I hated it. The movie is based on the comics of Alan Moore and features an impressive cast of 19th-century fictional characters. The ring leader is Allan Quatermain of King Solomon's Mines fame; there's Minna Harker, from Bram Stoker's Dracula; Robert Louis Stevenson's Dr. Jekyll (and his buddy, Mr. Hyde); Jules Verne's Captain Nemo, Rodney Skinner, The Invisible Man; Tom Sawyer--enough said; and Oscar Wilde's Dorian Gray along with his portrait.

Minna Harker, of course, is a woman, yet still a member of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. 19th century sensibilities didn't think too much of women, after all, and The League of Extraordinary Gentlepeople doesn't quite roll off the tongue.

The team is assembled by "M" (who else) and their assignment is to go to Venice to stop a villain named the Phantom--with badly scarred face covered by a mask--from taking over the world. So far, so good right? The set up is great. It's what the film does with this motley crew that is the problem.

What's missing from LXG is any notion of plot development. We have a set up and 40 million special effects, that's it. Things are blown up, blown down, and run over. There's a car chase, a tank chase, machine guns, you name it, they've got it--everything except coherence.

You quickly have to give up on the story. Don't even think about trying to follow it, it's like arguing with a two-year-old. All you have, then, are the special effects. And they're fun--for a while, but certainly not enough to keep you enthralled, or even really interested.

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen reminded me a lot of Sondheim's "Into the Woods" where we catch up with a bunch of fairy tale characters and find out about their lives beyond "happily ever after." Sondheim's musical succeeds by bringing in the familiar to life in interesting new ways. League, on the other hand, stumbles along, introducing the characters and then doing nothing with them except toss them around in special effectdom. In short, I like the concept, but was bored by the actual.


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