The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen feels like a movie made by aliens. It’s not good or bad, but it sure is something.

Given the harsh production that went on behind the scenes, I’m not surprised; whatever they wanted to go for from the start was well beyond the capabilities of everyone involved. At the same time, I can’t tell if the entire film really is a trainwreck or a mind-numbingly smart approach to making a superhero crossover before the MCU existed. Which might beg the question: wouldn’t this be nothing more than a mere popcorn flick, especially given the trailer that promised high-octane action-adventure type fun? Technically so, but for a variety of reasons LXG seems to be trying to aim for something else because making a worthy popcorn flick was clearly never going to work given the circumstances.

Practically all of the dialogue is nothing but slow-moving exposition meant to tell us that yes, we are watching a movie about a league of gentlemen plus a woman that are indeed extraordinary. (Think Deadshot’s comment in Suicide Squad but really drawn out over multiple people.) And that’s not even bringing up some of their attempts at sounding cool with lines like “Rule Britannica” but instead coming off as wishy-washy. It’s very hard to get past, especially when there’s a far too long portion of the movie dedicated to them bonding as they travel to Venice and it’s nothing but talk. It feels laboured and drawn out, and I can’t tell if that’s bad writing amongst a lousy ensemble or some kind of genius method to get us to really get involved with the cast. For what it’s worth, I definitely got to feel some of the characters’ qualities, especially the Jekyll/Hyde dynamic that felt pretty lively. (The others, like Mina and the Invisible Man, feel like old hat.) But them acting cool does not make them look cool.

Then there’s the look of the film. The FX work has its moments, and for the league members that aren’t Mina it’s good, but for the most part it is astonishingly bad and very distracting. It’s pretty garish to look at, but at the same time it’s hard to look away because the steampunk-inspired production design gets put to good use all throughout. The scope of the film is vast wherever they go and the film does a very good job of highlighting it; it’s definitely a big adventure. Too bad when CG takes its place in crucial scenes like the Venice chase it becomes a real letdown.

There’s a lot more, but those two things left the biggest impression on me in the end and really made me wonder what I just watched. Most people hated it when it came out--no surprise, really, since it feels too slow and too simple to accomplish anything grandiose and worthwhile. And I cannot stress enough how bad the FX are. At the same time, though, to add to the things I liked about it (including how well-filmed and intense all three fights are--the first two in the starting 20 minutes and the last making up the entire climax), it felt as if the faults of the film might have been adding up to something a lot greater than I had been assuming. Which meant, if that were the case, I was too cynical or dumb to get it. Or maybe there really is no special construction to it all and the league’s dynamic is just that heedlessly tiresome. I can’t tell.

The film’s mere existence is commendable, that’s for sure. Trying to cram a whole origin story for characters that didn’t already have them (much in the way the MCU established the core heroes before The Avengers) in under two hours and expecting a franchise to spawn from that was impressive. Maybe at the start of production it made sense, also since the director made the first Blade movie and could therefore make a stylish superhero film. Alas, it was never meant to be, and I can’t tell whether what we got was worthwhile or rubbish.

2003 was a weird year for movies, especially superhero movies.

Submitted September 26, 2020 at 01:56AM by Akram323 https://ift.tt/33WLHDy