‘The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen’ or — Steampunk Under Pressure?

‘The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen’ (2003) is as baffling as is it boring and is a movie I still can’t completely wrap my head around.

It starts off not too badly with a decent amount of energy and the promise of a fantastical, steam-punk aesthetic driven adventure that will whisk us away on wings of imagination. But its not long before the energy collapses, the steam goes completely out of the punk and we are being pummelled by the leaden fists of apathy.

I still can’t quite put my finger on when this happens, precisely. Is it when they board the Nautlius which, to be honest, looks pretty cool even if it does resemble a wedding-cake crossed with a particularly aggressive looking dildo? Or is it when they arrive in Venice where it isn’t just the city that starts collapsing but also the story, special effects and any sense of character motivation? Either way, by the time the film enters its final hour it has become a tedious slog where any promise or potential has been completely squandered.

Yet what I find even more baffling than the film’s actual plot is that this was the movie that made both its director, Stephen Norrington, and its star, Sean Connery, quit the movie business for good. That’s a pretty big deal! Norrington had directed ‘Blade’ in 1998 and looked all set for a sparkling career, whilst Sean Connery is… well… he’s Sean bloody Connery and this is the film, THIS movie, was what made him finally throw it all in? Sure, it was meant to be a gruelling and tense experience making LXG but he’d been making movies for decades so could he not shrug (with the emphasis on the “Sh”) this one off?

I also can’t quite figure out why Connery seemed to have thrown himself into this project in the way he did not only having a exec producer credit but also throwing his weight around over Norrington’s and, as some rumours go, possibly directing a couple of scenes himself. I don’t want to take anything away from Connery, and at the risk of sounding age-ist, but when I think of who would be the best fit to take control of a large-budget, steampunk, Alan Moore graphic novel adaptation the last person in the world I’d think of would be an elderly Sean Connery. Was he that upset at turning down Gandalf that he was desperate to be in a blockbuster franchise one last time? Was he actually a secret comic-book/Alan Moore fan all this time? I doubt it. I just can’t imagine him, ultimately, giving a damn.

Either way, it’s something I know very little about and am sure there are people out there with loads more information into what happened. It would certainly be more interesting than the actual movie itself.