League of
Extraordinary Gentlemen (DTS Region 2 PAL)
Picture: B+
Sound: B+ Extras: C Film: D
It’s simply amazing how a film could pull together so much
talent and exciting characters and yet churn out a pure and utter humiliating
piece of filmmaking. Where did they go
wrong? Well, the film is plagued with
problem after problem and just the simple nature of the film makes it pretty
hard to follow or grasp, let alone really care about anything that happens
during it’s duration. Now I know that
for those that are fans of the comic book, this will probably make perfect
sense, but whether that is the case or not, you still need to enlighten the
audience with some sort of character development, plot, and other essentials of
good writing in order to direct the action for the big-screen.
Problem number one begins with the fact that the so-called
‘extraordinary gentlemen’ are anything but!
How could characters like this be so lifeless? Well, for one it’s a little thing called character development
that evidentially was in short supply when the writers were penning this tired
story. We are given very little
background information regarding our characters and therefore we know little
about them and soon we care even less about them. Of course, they are taken from various outside sources ranging
from Dorian Gray, Captain Nemo, The Invisible Man, Allan Quartermain, etc, but
putting them all together is cross-breeding that makes you wish all parties
involved were sterile instead. These
characters have fewer dimensions than their flat comic book shape.
So we assemble our players with little background and then
we are taken all over the place as they are out to protect the world from a
dominant force, which also is given little backstory and so why in the world do
these characters even care enough about what they are trying to protect? This script would have been better off in
the hands of let’s say a 4th grader instead, because at least then
there would have been more imagination going on. If you can’t wow the audience with a compelling story then you
have to rely on some great action and cool effects, but once again this falls
flat on its face. The characters are
equally as dull as their fighting and are given very little screen time to
actually employ their abilities, but by the time we do get to see some action
we are hardly in the mood because we have little concern for anything that is
happening. We are confused as to how
all the fragmented pieces fit together and like a young child trying to build a
puzzle, we want to give up and throw the puzzle across the room because the
pieces don’t seem to match the picture on the box.
Well, fortunately the subject of this review is to focus a
bit more closely on this DVD edition released in Region 2 Europe, which
includes something that is NOT on the U.S. Region 1 issue and that is the
inclusion of an optional DTS audio track.
Director Stephen Norrington seems to get ripped off with his films when
it comes to better sound like DTS in the U.S., likewise with his 1998 film Blade, the Japanese DTS edition of
which is reviewed elsewhere on this site.
While that film is a bit harder to track down, this one is not and
simply makes the U.S. issue irrelevant.
While it would take a miracle and then some to actually breathe life
into this dud, the inclusion of the better DTS sound does engage you a bit more
than the comatose-ness you might experience in standard Dolby Digital. Split surrounds are quite active and there
always seems be a great amount of sound being channeled throughout the
room. The Dolby Digital never fully
offered the high and low-end presence that is abundant here. The mixing seems fairly balanced out right,
although dialogue could be boosted up a bit more to match some of the louder
action sequences.
The 2.35 X 1 anamorphic picture looks a bit washed out and
seems to be similar to that of the U.S. release where the black levels were a
tad off and looked more like a deep gray.
The PAL transfer and conversion to NTSC looks good with minimal
choppiness and brings out good depth and definition. I would be interested to see what this film looks like in the
in-decline D-VHS D-Theater format. So
the picture has marginal differences whereas the sound is a complete night and
day type of A/B comparison. This is a
true no-brainer and this film was designed for solid sound playback.
Extras seem to match that of the Region 1 release, which I
suppose will interest those that actually gave this film any sense of praise,
but I think the disappointment factor of this film was pretty consistent across
the board and in most people’s recollection.
Let’s just hope that this film falls into obscurity and will only remain
as a painful memory for Sean Connery, kind of like Meteor. Remarkably, the
film was a hit in Europe and there may be a sequel.
- Nate Goss
