[IronDragon]

When I first heard about this movie I was really excited. Only once however have I run into a movie that improved on the original story (Practical Magic). The original work by Alan Moore was Literate and imaginative and had a sense of both irony and a placement in history, the movie has none of these things. Everything except Connery seems to get lost in an endless barrage of guns and explosions I believe every set in the movie eventually explodes. (The library of Dorian Grey doesn’t but it is the scene of one of the most ludicrous gun fights I can recall.) The explosions are nothing compared to the poorly rendered computer generated Mr. Hyde, it actually makes the Hulk look realistic.
The Leagues theatrically scarred and masked nemesis calls himself the Fantom and his ambition is to cause unrest in Europe, then make millions selling his new state-of-the-art weaponry to warring nations. This gives the producers carte blanche to roll out tanks, machine guns, automobiles, missiles and other action-friendly technology that didn't exist at the time. And roll them out they do, ad nauseum, to the detriment of the movie.
In the original story Mina Harker was the leader of the collection of extraordinary gentlemen which of course was ironic and actually allowed for character development. The movie of course needed to change this to make Sean Connery the leader, for irony to work people need to think and this is not a movie where much thinking goes on. There is some debate if the change in the Leagues leadership was because Connery’s ego needed to be stroked or because the writers were more interested in special effects than characterization.

Character development seems limited to a sort of father / son relationship thing between Connery and young Tom Sawyer. In the original story Connery’s character Quatermain was a washed up has been and an opium addict but here he not only fights ever villain is sight he keeps a stiff upper lip about the death of his son.

The movie is embarrassingly bad.

My advice, wait six months and this dog will be on the cheep rack of the video store.