League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen (Blu-ray)

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Truth is the first casualty in war, but in Hollywood, when it comes to literary adaptations it's the subplots and marginal characters that are usually the first to go. Not so in "The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen," a 2003 adventure based on Alan Moore's graphic novel, which was illustrated by Kevin O'Neill. The filmmakers actually added characters, but messed with the tone and premise even more.

In Moore's novel, it's a fellow literary legend that sets this group in motion. When Sherlock Holmes is reported to have been killed during a fight with Professor Moriarty, an opium-addicted Allan Quartermain pulls himself together and joins forces with other literary figures. Quartermain, who has become a broken man since failing to profit from discovering King Solomon's mines (from the novel by H. Rider Haggard), basically gets a chance at redemption. Joined by ex-pirate Captain Nemo (from Jules Verne's "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea"), the Invisible Man (of H.G. Wells' creation), Dr. Henry Jekyll (who, of course, turns into Mr. Hyde in the Robert Louis Stevenson novel), and Mina Harker (who's doing relatively okay since suffering that nasty bite in "Bram Stoker's Dracula"), he sets off to set things right.

In the 2003 big-screen version, filmmakers added the characters of Dorian Gray (as in Oscar Wilde's "Picture of") and Tom Sawyer (Mark Twain's creation). And they whitewashed the characters a bit to make them more heroic and suave than the oddities they were in the novel. Then, perhaps inspired by the presence of Sean Connery, they went with a plot involving a madman who tries to make staged attacks against nations look like the work of different countries, confident that a world war will let him emerge as the sole power on earth.

The premise is fun and the opening leads you to believe that it might be an interesting adventure, but there's a certain stiffness to it all-and I'm not just saying this because it's the English secret serviceman known as "M" (Richard Roxburgh) who calls them all together to serve Great Britain. The film just feels average, as if something exciting was filmed in shorthand, glossing over things that might have added texture and depth. As distinctive as these characters were in literature, they really don't leap off the visual page. Then again, little touches like a turban on a seldom-speaking Nemo, a Hulk-sized torso on Mr. Hyde, and a curiously immortal Dorian Gray make the characters more conformingly Hollywood. Watching this, you experience a sense of déjà vu. It's not a matter of whether you've seen it all before. That part is painfully obvious. It's more the question of where that distracts you-like a clone robot army being built in a remote location such as Mongolia? Hmmmm. Then too, while comic books presume characters and situations that defy reality, there are things in this film that defy reason.

I've never been to Venice, but it's a little laughable to have Nemo's Nautilus, which he calls the Sword of the Sea, slicing through the narrow canals even though it's five city blocks long and looks like a cruise ship that's been squeezed on both sides to make it slender as a sabre. More laughable is that these characters flit here and there, with no real development possible-either in character or plot. And lovers of literature will absolutely cringe when Nemo's first mate says, "Cal me Ishmael."

That said, the special effects are believable, the plot (however average) is still going to engage people who love this sort of movie, and for the rest of the movie-loving public there's Mr. Connery. He still has charisma and a screen presence that's capable of rescuing a film from complete silliness or boredom, and he does so here. Though the script doesn't leave much room for character development, you get a far different vibe when Connery is on-camera than you do when Naseeruddin Shaw appears as Nemo, Peta Wilson as Harker/Murray, Tony Curran as the Invisible Man, Jason Flemyng as Jekyll/Hyde, Stuart Townsend as Dorian Gray, or Shane West as a twenty-something Tom Sawyer.

Video:
"The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen" is one of seven titles that Fox released in its first Blu-ray wave, and what strikes you first is the small paper insert that reads, "This Blu-ray disc is manufactured to the highest quality available. It is possible this Blu-ray disc was manufactured after your Blu-ray disc player. To ensure the best possible viewing experience, your Blu-ray disc player may need a firmware or software upgrade. Please consult your hardware manufacturer's website for the latest firmware or software version and, if an upgrade is available, we suggest that you follow its installation instructions."