THE LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN (2003) ** Never quite finds its way out of being a comic book. For a film based on a comic book that probably shouldn't be taken as much of an insult, but I do mean it as one. I mean, c'mon, you got Sean Connery on the set and you're makin' comic book movies?! Given that it doesn't do what I would have liked it to (rather ingenious comic book writers, actually, working on all of those characters from classic adventure lit), the strong point is probably how appropriately comic book-looking it is. I mean, it does look like a really cool comic book. The stars of the show probably turn out to be Captain Nemo's car, and the Nautilus. Which, again, with Sean around. So you have all these shallow variations on characters that you already know (Dorian Grey, a vampire, Tom Sawyer, etc.) and all this stuff-explosions and fights and stuff-going on all the time, but you're still left with the sense that nothing is happening, or at least that you wish something would happen. Sean's not bad, he's never bad, but he seems to be thinking the same thing. Stuart Townsend does the most with his role, as Mr Grey, primping it around to the point where you hope he lives long enough for the word to permit him his natural habitat, in Studio 54. Why even make movies of comic books if they're going to be so comic-book like, I mean, is it for people who really can't read?
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