Extraordinary Gentlemen (Connery, Townsend, Roxbrough, Flemyng)

[truepenny]

Mirrorthaw and I went to see The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and then out to dinner. Am feeling much better about world and own place in same.

Random comments.

Mmmm. Stuart Townsend pretty. I am so exceptionally glad they backed off of casting him as Aragorn, but he makes a beautiful Dorian Gray. Also, he looks like Jack Sparrow's well-scrubbed younger brother, which is going to provide me HOURS of mental entertainment.

Also, I cannot hate a movie that has Sean Connery in it. I just can't do it. If I couldn't hate that dreadful Bond movie where they "disguise" him as a Japanese man, I can't hate this.

Why did they have to give Richard Roxbrough such a crap role? He's soooooooooo good.

Am v. v. v. annoyed by the rampant and blatant sexism, but aside from that comment, I don't think I have anything to say about it. Peta Wilson did a gorgeous job with what she had, but she barely had enough straw for a straw-man, much less bricks.

Tom Sawyer needed to die. Or be revealed as a double-crossing villain. Or something.

On the other hand, I was very impressed with Jason Flemyng as Jekyll/Hyde. He was super.

I haven't read The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (although believe you me it's on the list), so I'm not going to comment on what they did or did not do with their direct source material, but the way they were playing fast and loose with the canon on Dorian Gray and Jekyll/Hyde (RLS's Hyde was (a.) a smaller man than Hyde and (b.) EVIL. Evil, evil, evil. And non-negotiable evil. He'd be on Moriarty's side because it would let him kill more people.) was indicative of people who didn't care about their source material--as was the introduction of Tom Sawyer (the reason given is that the studio didn't think Americans would care about a story that didn't have an American in it. Meaning that Americans shouldn't have cared about Moulin Rouge! or Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon or either Harry Potter movie or ... I'm going to stop now before I actually start frothing at the mouth).

So basically, this was a big silly entertaining movie with a really smart entertaining movie dismembered and buried in it, probably beneath the ruins of Venice. I'm glad to have seen it (because once I read the book, I'll never be able to see it again, and Townsend, Connery, Roxbrough, and Flemyng were definitely worth watching), but I wouldn't have paid more than matinee prices for it, and I feel no urge to see it again.

And one last thought: am I a very bad person for the fact that one loop of my brain, for the whole second half of the movie, was writing Moriarty/Gray slash?

Comments

Heee

[matociquala.livejournal.com]

Well, never fear. Hyde in the book is as evil as you could want. Except he's evil in a very intelligent, self-serving sort of way, with a shred of honor.

But he is big. *g*

Speaking of shredding the canon--Mina as a Vampire? :-P

Mina

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

But Mina as vampire actually follow with reasonable logic from the premises of Dracula itself. (Although they should have made up their damn minds whether she was a vampire or not, or at least mentioned the casting a reflection and going out in sunlight as anomalies.) The do-gooding Hyde is completely contrary to the story of Jekyll and Hyde as conceived by Stevenson. I'm not saying Stoker wouldn't be horrified by this Mina, but he was halfway to the idea already. A redeemable Hyde is just not in the cards.

I'm sure I bored poor Mirrorthaw dreadfully, going on about the weird things that had happened to Dorian Gray and Henry Jekyll in their translation to the big screen.

Re: Mina

[ealgylden.livejournal.com]

(Although they should have made up their damn minds whether she was a vampire or not, or at least mentioned the casting a reflection and going out in sunlight as anomalies.)

If they went by Dracula book canon, she would be able to go out into the sunlight- the Count was weakened by the sun and lost some of his various powers, but he didn't burst into flames or anything. That all came with later authors, or from other folkloric traditions than those Stoker drew from.

The mirror thing, though... yeah, that doesn't work quite as well. Oh well.

[angeyja.livejournal.com]

Mmmm. Stuart Townsend pretty. I am so exceptionally glad they backed off of casting him as Aragorn, but he makes a beautiful Dorian Gray. Also, he looks like Jack Sparrow's well-scrubbed younger brother, which is going to provide me HOURS of mental entertainment.

Yes, indeed. But did he have to die? Perhaps they could have killed off someone more boring.

Tom Sawyer needed to die. Or be revealed as a double-crossing villain. Or something.

See above.

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

Good points, both of them. I'd trade Sawyer for Gray without thinking twice.

Although, since as far as we know Mina didn't destroy the portrait, should there be a sequel, I bet he could be mojo'd back from the beyond.

And if they mojo'd him back from the beyond, I might go SEE the sequel.

[oracne.livejournal.com]

You'll like the comic, I think. It has an Invisible Man who's a total sociopath, and none of that "doing the right thing" Mr. Hyde we saw in the movie (what was UP with that?).

Also, the comic Quatermain is considerably more entertaining, and Mina rules the roost.

Invisible Man

[beable]

I was kinda disappointed that they didn't show the recruitment of the Invisible Man :)

I went to see this expecting it to be awful but fun. Once I divorced myself from the book, the movie was still crap but it was fun crap with some good actors.

Definitely read the book though, it's absolutely wonderful.

[rysmiel.livejournal.com]

As an avid fan of the comic I was impressed with the degree to which much of the spirit and plot-shape was translated, given that the actual elements are very different. [ I'd kind have liked the catching The Invisible Man in the girl's school from The Pearl scene on film, but it would have got the whole thing at least an R rating. ]

I believe the Hyde being bigger than Jekyll thing is a reference to a particular film version of the story which Alan Moore likes in which Hyde, though he starts off smaller than Jekyll as in the original, is larger and more monstrous every time Jekyll makes the transformation; Hyde as seen in the story is intended as a logical extrapolation of that trend.

And yes, really pretty Dorian Gray. *wipes drool from chin* I had been hoping Jude Law would be cast in the part - played as he does Bosie Douglas opposite Stephen Fry in Wilde, which has Dorian Gray echoes all over it, and is otherwise generally wonderful.

It's probably worth mentioning for completeness' sake that there is a second volume to The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen comic, which has not yet been collected, nor have I read it; but the premise plays off a hint which did make it through into the film, the newspaper ad on the wall just before they go into Dorian Gray's house suggesting that the green flashes on Mars might be volcanoes. In an ideal world, there would have been a Merchant Ivory War of the Worlds fifteen years ago when Anthony Hopkins was the right age for the narrator; but I'd settle for a League sequel based on that premise.

[angeyja.livejournal.com]

I did things in this (slightly backwards) order...

read Jess Nevins annotations
read first volume of League
saw the movie

I think you're right about Hyde. Seems to remind me of an interview somewhere... I didn't really have problems with the adaptation (except for notation above) but then I've been watching Buffy for sometime, and enjoyed the Batman and Xmen movies and Jackson's LotR so my brain simply seems to go into "alternate universe here" mode now at the movies, and I'm probably not the best judge. The problems seem to be otherwhere. I'd like to see the second volume done with this cast, sans Sawyer (bring DG back...repeat 3X) but perhaps with the writing, directing, producing end of it changed.