p r e f e r r e d r e v i e w e r s :
 |
 |
|
You haven't selected any preferred reviewers. To learn more about customizing your experience, click here.
|
|
|
 |
 |
o t h e r r e v i e w e r s :
|
|
|
DokBrowne [ 0.5 ]
[ add to preferred ]
[ email this review to a friend ]
Just as I suspected, this is a titanically bad movie made by lazy, incompetent morons who can't even construct a decent-LOOKING scene or one that could pass for a mindless summer drivel picture. This makes silly action blockbusters look Shakespearean by comparison.
(1-7 scale)
CAST/ACTING: 1 (Sean Connery is so full of himself it's starting to make me nauseous. The movie seems predominantly tailored to glorify him instead of highlighting the ENSEMBLE aspect of the cast. I mean, what does Allan Quatermain have that's more interesting than Dr. Jekyll or the Invisible Man or Dorian Gray? Even beyond the casting of the egomaniacal Connery, Quatermain is probably the LEAST dynamic of these classic figures, in part because of his relative lack of self-conflict. The others have to grapple with their own evils and vices, whereas Quatermain is just a generic hero. Which is why he's their natural leader, I suppose, but that doesn't make it right. The good guys shouldn't always have to be so dull. Sure, the script and/or Connery himself supplies Quatermain with a dramatic subplot about redeeming the loss of his son by training Tom Sawyer, but it's so paint-by-numbers obvious (like the fact that he and Sawyer are essentially the EXACT SAME CHARACTER only at different ages, or that Quatermain reveals the story of his dead son at the same time that he paternally teaches Sawyer how to shoot, like, hello subtlety) and above all insulting to the audience (due to the well-known fact that the Sawyer character was added specifically to gain the interest of American audiences - and don't get me started on how flagrantly demeaning that is, and why they didn't think a timeless superstar like Sean Connery would suffice for us shallow, outrageously nationalistic U.S. viewers even though he has in dozens of other movies over the years, not to mention the very simple truth that I really don't care whether there are American characters or not in a movie, so long as there are interesting or likable characters, period, and that it's a good movie, end of story, dammit - but anyway, yeah, that Tom Sawyer was nothing but a marketing product, and that he was being groomed to lead a lucrative spinoff in the wonderfully dubious event of this film's success, so you know this whole part of the story exists merely for business purposes. And as Tom Sawyer, Shane West is awful. It could just be the imbecility of his one-liners on top of the overall redundancy of his character, but no, to make it worse he plays it with the ungainly cockiness of a kid who was just suddenly thrown into the spotlight and forced to act. After the sub-mediocre duet of "Whatever it Takes" and "Get Over it", as well as his role on that show "Once and Again" (which I never really watched but heard good things about), I thought he might have the potential to win me over someday, but "League" proves me wrong all over again. I should have trusted my instincts from the start - Shane West is a loser in the tradition of Freddie Prinze, Jr. - some "cute" (but in fact strangely disfigured) hotshot who only pretends to act in a series of roles designed to challenge him as minimally as possible while flattering his supposedly suave (but in fact strangely off-kilter and irritating) personality (i.e. endless grinning). In these ways at least you can respect the casting decision here - West more than resembles the lethargic, self-adoring cipher that Sean Connery has become in the past decade. The supporting cast uniformly makes absolutely no impression whatsoever. They say all the crappy lines with the barest of conviction then go home to wallow in their deserving career obscurity (although I pity poor Richard Roxburgh, so memorable in "Moulin Rouge!", and from the sappiness of my heart, I'm sure all of these actors are capable of better performances))
DIRECTING/ETC.: 1 (he has no idea how to structure scenes or build suspense or deliver a payoff or advise his actors or scout out decent locations or help design sets or engagingly film a scene or pretty much anything. Yet he made none of these mistakes when he directed "Blade", which wasn't that good but was at least competently put together. Bizarre)
SCRIPT: 1 (assembling a bunch of famous, multi-layered literary figures should make for a fascinating study of human behavior and interaction amongst some of the most recognizable names in classic fiction, as well as plenty of clever references to their respective sources, and, of course, an intriguing "what if" fantasy situation that puts all of these iconic personalities into a fresh perspective, right? How about no? How about subverting the Bram Stoker and H.G. Wells characters by transferring their abnormalities to arbitrary nobodies (Mina Harker was never that compelling in the novel, and since all of these people eventually died anyway, what's the point in mentioning that the Invisible Man already has so they can give his "power" to a random person who has none of the same eccentricities as Jack Griffin himself - not that I know what any of them are, to be honest, as I haven't read the book, but there's also the side effect of the potion that compels Griffin to murder those who don't follow his orders, a complication (read: interesting conflict) that isn't even addressed by the movie's version, who's nothing more than a lame prankster who continuously claims he's a bad guy (and who Connery makes a horrible ongoing joke of noticing that he's more heroic than he lets on), but who in fact is the most harmless and easygoing league member of all)? How about simplifying the Mr. Hyde alter ego into a lumbering visual effect for slack-jawed summer audiences to gawk at, whose Hulk-ian proportions are blatantly intended to divert our attention away from how utterly NOT DANGEROUS he is? I mean, c'mon, of all these people, Mr. Hyde is by far the most evil. He's pure evil, in fact - all of his virtue and decency have been quarantined in a separate mind - yet both times Jekyll becomes Hyde in the movie (not counting his first appearance) result in Hyde calmly and cooperatively helping the League fight bad guys and save the day. There's no menace, no teetering on the edge of sanity, no implications that they're dealing with the latent evil of man manifested into an actual human being (or monster, in the movie's overly literal case). In other words, no point to this character being the legendary Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde when in actuality he's no different than The Thing from The Fantastic Four (except that, like with the Invisible Man, everyone insists that the "nefarious" Hyde is going to turn on them at any moment, despite all evidence to the extreme contrary). How about portraying Verne's brilliant, cynical, reclusive, mysterious, and slightly deranged Captain Nemo as a religious (according to one scene) butler? His only contribution to the team is transportation (although it makes no sense that the fucking gigantic Nautilus can glide peacefully in the not-so-gigantic canals of Venice, especially without ever being seen or heard or causing massive tidal waves to flood the city); everything else he says is exposition, and everything else he does is uncharacteristic martial arts. How about combining the villainy of Moriarty with the Phantom of the Opera for NO REASON? I can understand Moriarty wearing a mask to conceal his identity, if I must (though the fact that nobody recognizes who he really is upon seeing his true face throughout the whole movie should clue him in that disguise isn't necessary), but why would he also apply burnt-skin prosthetics while wearing the mask? Because the script wants to mislead us into thinking that he is indeed the Phantom of the Opera. But why? Just one more shout-out to classic literature at the expense of logic? Since he's already disguising himself to the League as the cryptically, oh-so-obviously-evil nickname of "M", why go to extra lengths to disguise himself in a whole different way to the complete strangers he and his henchmen keep killing, especially when he's A) killing these people, making it impossible for them to report having seen him, and B) killing these people under yet ANOTHER disguise by trying to frame England and Germany for the killings and lead them and the world to war)? So nobody even knows that Moriarty, or the Phantom, or anyone for that matter was even present during these crimes. Therefore, the only people menat to be fooled by the Phantom ruse are the real life viewers of this movie. The script makes no effort to justify this prominent detail in any useful way. Writer James Dale Robinson could have written just one tiny little line to establish that Moriarty was pretending to be the Phantom of the Opera for [THIS] reason and thereby averted the entire issue here. Instead he litters the story with these kinds of inconsistencies, oversights, wannabe-crowd-pleasing trivia bits, and gaping lapses in coherency. Then, late in the plot, he introduces the possibility that the defining traits of our League are going to be replicated (the invisibility, immortality, vampire-ocity, evil-doppleganger-sisity, Connery's, uh...grouchiness, I presume, and naturally no mention is made of Nemo, as James Dale Robinson must have realized there is no way to abridge Nemo's reputation by assigning him a "power"), but this twist is only effective in further highlighting the triviality with which these potentially riveting characters are handled, because it occurred to me that random henchman #3 made just as dynamic and fruitful an invisible man or colossal Mr. Hyde as the actualy Invisible Man and Mr. Hyde, which is to say not at all. It reminded me that the only function their "powers" serve is kinda sorta to amplify the action scenes. Which is also why it's so totally stupid to watch Nemo doing kung fu - since the movie wants to exploit their powers solely for the entertainment of combat, they should have removed the comparatively powerless Nemo altogether. He's more what you'd call an in-ter-es-ting char-ac-ter than an idea for an action figure (too much so, that is), so he doesn't belong at all. And since they added Dorian Gray to the mix (Sawyer, too), the only loss suffered by Nemo's removal would be the plot convenience of his submarine. So you can imagine just how short on creativity James Dale Robinson must have been if he couldn't even devise a way to replace that single plot convenience with the knowledge and lore of all the other literary figures at his disposal. I could go on like this, singling out contrivances, elaborating upon each point of stupidity, and penning the great American novel on what a sheer, muddled, and dim-witted waste of a fantastic idea this movie's story was, but I've made my point and there comes a time when you just can't keep on relentlessly bashing a despicable movie anymore, not only because it wears you out, and because the movie isn't worth your effort, but also because life's too short to dwell on something so utterly negative. I should put this magnitude of thought and concern into reviewing movies that I love, not hate. I know that'll never happen, but that's the way it should be)
ORIGINALITY/CREATIVITY: 1 (conceptually, an easy 7; the way it's executed, an easy 1)
TECHNICAL/VISUAL STYLE: 2 ('s bad, like "this is an incompleted train wreck of a big production" bad)
EFFECTIVENESS OF GENRE (action/superhero/adaptation): 1 (action is boring, the superheroes are poorly-used gimmicks, and I hope that this is an embarrassing adaptation of Alan Moore's comic, because if it is, as my friend claims, a pretty faithful cinematic recreation, then I must seriously question my esteem of the venerable Moore that he would willingly pen such total fucking garbage)
ENDING: 1 (so is the shaman reviving Quatermain, or what the hell is going on in that final scene? And if he is, how is that possible? Is there no permanence to death in this universe? Are we supposed to want Quatermain to come back to life, even though he died somewhat nobly and passed the torch to a new generation? If this isn't the case and I've misinterpreted the ending, then I wonder if anyone can explain it. And by "wonder if anyone can explain it", I mean "know for a fact that it made no sense and was just a pathetic rush job like the entire movie")
ENTERTAINMENT VALUE: 1 (in addition to everything else that's wrong with this movie, it's incredibly boring)
OVERALL: 9 / 56 points
AVERAGE: 1.125 / 7
GRADE: F
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Weighted Rating | : 4.5 |
| No. Ratings | : 11 | |
| No. Reviews | : 2 | |
|
|
|
|