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Such brilliant source material. Such a bad film. Why?
(This is a review I just wrote at the IMDB.)
Last night I watched The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen on HBO. Big mistake.
Why?
Two reasons: I'd read the graphic novel, and my IQ is over 73.
Just seconds into the film I was already shaking my head. Both in small details and large, they'd managed to completely botch the job. Painful dialog. Embarrassing special effects. Incredibly annoying characters. A script obviously written with dull-witted seven-year-old boys in mind.
I'm trying to envision the Hollywood idiots who sat around a conference table and destroyed Alan Moore's witty and intelligent graphic novel. But then I cringe, because by all accounts Sean Connery was one of them. He must be quite a bit dumber than I had hoped.
I can't remember which scene first made me say "Good lord, that's even worse than I dreamed possible!", but I know I said it more than once.
Oh, and "Venice". I've been to Venice, and Senator, that's no Venice. The one thing EVERYONE in the world knows is that Venice has no streets, only canals! So what do they do? Have a car racing all over huge, completely non-existent streets in Venice.
Why? What were they thinking?
So many other things to insult the viewer. A "graveyard" in Venice. The enormous Nautilus cruising easily though canals that in the real world aren't 1/100th wide or deep enough to fit it. I can't go on. It's just too awful.
Do yourself a huge favor and read the graphic novel instead of seeing this turkey.
Last night I watched The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen on HBO. Big mistake.
Why?
Two reasons: I'd read the graphic novel, and my IQ is over 73.
Just seconds into the film I was already shaking my head. Both in small details and large, they'd managed to completely botch the job. Painful dialog. Embarrassing special effects. Incredibly annoying characters. A script obviously written with dull-witted seven-year-old boys in mind.
I'm trying to envision the Hollywood idiots who sat around a conference table and destroyed Alan Moore's witty and intelligent graphic novel. But then I cringe, because by all accounts Sean Connery was one of them. He must be quite a bit dumber than I had hoped.
I can't remember which scene first made me say "Good lord, that's even worse than I dreamed possible!", but I know I said it more than once.
Oh, and "Venice". I've been to Venice, and Senator, that's no Venice. The one thing EVERYONE in the world knows is that Venice has no streets, only canals! So what do they do? Have a car racing all over huge, completely non-existent streets in Venice.
Why? What were they thinking?
So many other things to insult the viewer. A "graveyard" in Venice. The enormous Nautilus cruising easily though canals that in the real world aren't 1/100th wide or deep enough to fit it. I can't go on. It's just too awful.
Do yourself a huge favor and read the graphic novel instead of seeing this turkey.
no subject
it would appear that from the written word or graphic novel to TV or film
seems to be the most problematic. There are some cases where the changes are
said to improve a story, or at least make it work on the screen, but generally
speaking these things are "dumbed down" for the Masses.
And then there's stuff where the end result has close to nothing to do with
the original material; from what I can tell the recent "Catwoman" movie
has virtually nothing to do with the source material other than her having
a whip. I recently saw the last half or so of the "Wild Wild West" movie
and while it kept character names, the setting (more or less), and some
of the gadgetry it was otherwise not in the spirit or feel of the TV original.
Thing with "League" is that the Masses most surely have not read the graphic
novel so they could get away with departing from it _if_ the end result
was still decent. Which it apparently wasn't. Oh well....
no subject
The whole 'piling explosion' concept, of course, fails miserably. On the other hand I found the acting fine, though they should have left in the missing scenes between Dorian and Mina that are on the dvd.
Yes, there are some logic holes and plot problems, and it would have been better to have done the comic book plot, but Moore is as much to blame as the rest and was involved in the planning, according to what I've been told.
There's supposed to be a sequel being made, as it did much better in Europe than it did in the USA (since in the USA they only sent it to small art theaters).
Connery will appear in whatever people pay him to be in, he really doesn't care about the quality of the film, just the size of the paycheck and how big his name is in the credits.
no subject