Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: LXG: The League of Extrodinary Gentlemen

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Posted by Darryl Spicer (Member # 711) on 07-11-2003, 02:46 AM:

LXG: THE LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMAN

What do you get when you put Allen Quartermain, Captain Nemo, Dr. Jackyl and Mr. Hyde, and the invisible man together? An un-extraordinary movie that has no real direction other than to provide some bad special effect and a pointless plot.

The movie looked like one big mistake. Basically we have all the characters so let put them all together and give them pointless things to do. I actually liked Captain Nemo, he seemed to be the most effective a true fighter of them all. The worst was the Jackle and Hyde character. The CGI hyde looked like left over attempts at the hulk without the green. All in all the film did do us one hopefully big favor. It knocked out any potential attempts to make anymore movies involving these lackluster characters. And I thought Richard Chamberlain killed off anymore attempts at making Allen Quartemain films.

I give this one * star out of 4

Posted by Daryl C. W. O'Shea (Member # 1303) on 07-11-2003, 04:23 AM:

I like Sean Connery movies. If Sean Connery wasn't in the movie, I wouldn't have liked watching it at all.

The movie is pointless though. Some of the effects were poorly done, while some were well done. If you watch the credits you'll see that there were about 20 different effects companies, which probably explains the variety of good and bad effects.

Me thinks I'll start including the movie's website just for fun: http://www.lxgmovie.com/

Posted by Sam Hunter (Member # 1119) on 07-11-2003, 09:42 AM:

This is disappointing to hear as I was hoping it would be a fun movie to watch. Oh well, I will still go and see it anyway.
Stay tuned.................

Posted by Ian Price (Member # 14) on 07-11-2003, 12:36 PM:

LXG was the second stupidest movie Sean Connery has done since Zardoz! [eyes]

Posted by Rachel Gilardi (Member # 1016) on 07-11-2003, 01:29 PM:

I am so upset!! [thumbsdown]

I was looking forward to this movie so much. Too bad the special effects weren't any better then in the Hulk! [Roll Eyes]

Posted by Mark Lensenmayer (Member # 134) on 07-11-2003, 03:29 PM:

I really hated this movie. I haven't been this angry at a film since the Large Format disaster "Haunted Castle". It was just bad all the way around. The effects were inconsistent, the actors seemed to be thinking about their next film while they were doing this one, and the direction was choppy at best.

Note to directors: Watch your film on a large screen. Quick edits look exciting on your little editing screen, but it is very difficult for a viewer to keep up with things when the film is shown on a 60' screen...especially if one is sitting fairly close. Since the eye can't take in the entire screen at once, the head tries to keep up, and it just can't do it if you are cutting very fast. I realize in this case there was an effort to cover up some poor SFX and stunt work, but give us viewers a break.

Before I rip into this film, I'd like to send out a special greeting to the flamethrower guy from opening scene of Lethal Weapon IV...nice to see you about 3/4 through the film. Glad you could re-use the suit.

Also, the bad guy was evident very quickly. Can't you make us think just a little bit?

A quick look at the cast:

Alan Quartermain -- A retired British adventurer. Looked and sounded bored.
Skinner -- The Invisible guy. We just didn't see enough of him.
Mina -- The only joy in the film. She looked GOOD. I think I have a new member of my Favorite Actress club. Catherine-Zeta, look out!
Tom -- Did we really need him? "Aw, shucks, ma'am, I think yur purty!!"
Dorian Gray -- His picture looked better than the rest of the film.
Capt. Nemo -- Hey, this guy was pretty good! A new and interesting face. Nice sword work.
Dr. Jekyl -- See note below.

Some notes I made after wasting my $6.00 on this piece of whatever:

All we needed was Sherlock Holmes...My guess is he deduced that this was a terrible film and he stayed away.

The obvious comparison to Mr. Hyde is The Hulk. I think this is the wrong comparison. I think he more resembled POPEYE in the 1980 film of the same name after Popeye got tanked up on the spinach. I just got that film on DVD this week, and there is a scene of the GIANT arm coming out of the water that reminded me very much of Mr. Hyde.

Nice shot of Captain Ramius on the RED OCTOBER...oh, I'm sorry, just Sean Connery on the Nautilus.

Why didn't they use a CARRIE ending? Sure came close!

If she was a vampire, how could she be out in the daylight and use a mirror?

The only good thing about this film is that the next film I attend CAN'T be that bad. We'll see.

(Note: Actually, the next film I saw was WORSE...a Japanese film, PISTOL OPERA. Made no sense at all. My son is very good at Japanese, and he said the subtitles were almost completely wrong. Oh, well, I'll try again!)

[ 07-11-2003, 10:25 PM: Message edited by: Mark Lensenmayer ]

Posted by Will Kutler (Member # 770) on 07-11-2003, 04:56 PM:

No, I have not seen this film, and was not interested in doing so after watching the trailers. Too bad since I generally do enjoy Connery.

However, a note about Captain Nemo and the Nautilus:

Since its debut in 1954, the Nautilus from Disney's film has always been one of the most popular models sought out by model builders world wide. A major poll taken by one of the most popular model builders magazine a few years ago confirmed this. Unfortunately, Disney absolutely refused to publish the tech drawings or issue models. Nonetheless, the official drawings were bootlegged and published. Disney did what it could to have these magazine issues pulled...but to no avail...the trend just boomed!

In 1990 I purchased a limited model of the Nautilus at the Disneyana Store in the California theme park, via Disney Merchandise Services. The Model was very expensive, not of the greatest quality, and Disney Merchandise Services is anything but customer friendly!

But since the explosion, several excellent modelers have scratch built some very impressive models...some having several thousand hours of labor invested into them. These models include everything from small display models (a company out of Japan) made a very nice limited edition model) to fully operational rc versions 6 ft in length.

For more info, look up Disney's Nautilus on the WWW, where you can see some of these magnificant creations for yourself. Also check e-bay, as there is usually something up for auction.

Posted by Kristin Wahlund (Member # 922) on 07-13-2003, 12:22 AM:

I haven't seen this movie and I really hadn't planned on it at all since the trailer consisted of action sequence, a two bit line, more action, another line ect. but I did have some patrons tell me this evening that it was anything but extraordinary. i thought that was cute.

Posted by Michael Schaffer (Member # 1204) on 07-14-2003, 05:03 AM:

That movie sucked completely. I give it 7 [bs]

out of 7.

Posted by Charles Everett (Member # 889) on 09-02-2003, 06:04 PM:

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