2003 / 110 Minutes / PG-13
Reviewed by Dale Nauertz

And so we find ourselves staring Sean Connery in the eye, once again, and wondering why he still gets gainful employment. He’s still alive, apparently. He’s still swaggering about as though he had a reason to still be swaggering. No man ever has or ever will get more mileage out of James Bond’s legacy than he, and he seems to know it. There is the cocky, self-satisfied air to him of a man who no longer has to prove anything to anyone, least of all himself. One gets the sense that if the Bond era Connery (the one that used to matter) could see himself now, he would probably punch the old coot right in the jaw. I’m not saying that the man isn’t occasionally capable of greatness. He still has a few jewels left in him from time to time: “Hunt For Red October”, “The Untouchables” and even “Finding Forrester”. But on the whole, he has become a parody of himself, a joke that no longer seems to matter. When one considers that he was once offered the role of Gandalf in “Lord of the Rings” and turned it down, one can only breathe a sigh of relief. Ian McKellan is an actor still capable of impressing people. Connery is, unfortunately, not.

Connery isn’t the only reason this movie sucks. In fact, he may actually be one of the better things about it, such a lackluster enterprise it is. But he is still a joke in a joke of a film, and that IS his fault. This is Bond on autopilot and it’s a sad spectacle indeed. But where are my manners? “The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen” would like you to believe that it is an adaptation of the fine series of recent graphic novels from which it takes its name. But to assume that, my dear friends, would be a complete mistake. The mere concept of Victorian era literary heroes united against a foe bent on destroying the English Empire and tossing the world into chaos is all that remains. All the wit, all the ingenuity, all the darkness and nuance that made the comic such a fascinating read, all those things are gone. Instead we have bland characters and bland special effects and bland plot and bland pretty much everything. It’s rather hard to imagine this movie getting much duller. When the idea of Victorian era adventure fails to get a rise out of me, then you know this is a very slipshod film indeed. The screenwriting is lazy (the film comes to a screeching halt in order to establish character that good actors might have essayed without the film pausing for a breath). The direction is lazy. The production design is shiny, but never for a moment do you think you’re anywhere but a soundstage. The action sequences wheeze like a long distance runner that has hit the end of the marathon and is no longer even trying. The sorry jokes sprinkled throughout land with a collective thud. And characters I assume were meant to be intriguing and menacing only manage to bore and annoy. And what the hell is Tom Sawyer doing here? Or Dorian Gray? They weren’t in the comic, and they don’t really manage to do anything special to validate their presence here. The plot is some routine claptrap about preventing some madman bent on world domin(yawn)ation from starting a world war. Some of the suspense is drained from this notion when you realize that there will be a world war in twenty years from the events in this film anyway. I could go on to tell you that the action sequences are not only boring but pretty damn retarded as well, but I think you will have already figured that much out. If not, well, look no further than the sinking of Venice, which is prevented by blowing up a building in the center of town. Hey, don’t ask me. I watched the damn movie and I didn’t get it either.

Oh, what’s the use. I’m getting depressed just thinking about this damn movie. If you really must see it, it’s your funeral. I’ve said my piece, and I hope you learn from my mistake. All I can say is that Connery better start earning his share of the Oxygen again pretty soon. He’s coasted about as far as he can get on his past credentials, good as they are. I haven’t seen “The Avengers”, so I can’t tell you whether this movie is better or worse. But I can tell you that this movie isn’t very damn good. I can say that much.

This entry was posted on Friday, July 11th, 2003 at 8:14 pm and is filed under Dale's Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.