The probability is that most of you have already sampled this movie – the point of this review is to give my opinion on it, which is final

This is only Stephen Norrington’s fourth directorial movie – the history behind the movie has often been made public by one Sean Connery in his absoluteness of “never working with the director again”.

After the success of Blade, Norrington went on to direct the little movie known as Last Minute, and after some time away has returned with The League of Extraordinary Gentleman (from here let’s refer to it as LXG as per the poster).

LXG is based upon a comic series, something I haven’t read myself but the prospect of having mythical characters as saviours of the world is an intriguing one.

The character list includes Quartermain, Nemo and Jekyl/Hyde. Other mythical symbolists include a vampire named Harker played by Peta Wilson of the “Nikita” tv series – who looks rather exceptionally delicious with red hair and leather.

And so the story is that another character, The Phantom, is hell bent on world domination, by creating a world chaos and destruction. Pretty bog standard so far then – Sean Connery, as Quartermain, is suddenly pushed into a corner to save his country by the approach of a welld erssed gentleman – during which discussion many of his friends are killed. Quartermain is a recluse, preferring to live in Africa with his friends, away from the rest of the world. After their “murder” he makes the choice to stop this “phantom” (perhaps a rather ironic name).

We are provided with characters with no real logic to their linking – its like putting together a fruit, a vegetable and a big slab of meat and watching them rot

So our protagonist is brought to London by a mysterious man named M (no, not Dame Judi Dench of Bond) and soon an algamation of the said characters are brought together to form the so called LXG. To wit, the LXG are out to stop the phantom – the phantom is bad, we have treason, we have death, we have fantastical fights and big special effects.

Its unfortunate that this movie is 110minutes long as it felt like several hours – many moments of boredom ensue as you expect something spectacular to happen – after all this is the LXG, sadly there’s nothing in this movie that hasnt been seen or done before. Though I should emphasise Harker the Vampire is rather delicous (something about horny vampires)

LXG has moments of ingenuity – with characters using their “special” powers with great effect. But these are moments. The majority of the movie, you often wonder what is so special about the said characters – they dont portray anything extraordinary, rather the opposite.

The Phantom, is hell bent on world domination, by creating a world chaos and destruction. Pretty bog standard so far then

But perhaps I was expecting too much – or perhaps we had too many “special” characters and therefore were unable to get a closer glimpse as to the background of eacch of them. We are not given much of a reasoning as to why the characters are brought together – what lies in their interests? Essentially we are provided with characters with no real logic to their linking – its like putting together a fruit, a vegetable and a big slab of meat and watching them rot over a period of time – you know they will rot, but you watch it anyway, just in case something interesting happens.

That’s how I felt about this movie – a predicatable, long winded movie with moments of fun. Understated and subdued “powers” which are far from impressive – they have money for special effects and so they use it. Reminiscent of Reloaded (we have money so lets spend it on more special effects because we can), it’s a big budget movie about nothing in particular.

The ending leaves the opening for the possibilty of a sequel – and as Connery is not likely to work with Norrington ever again, perhaps it may be an improvement. It would be intriguing to see who would return, as this movie is far from Extraordinary.

Verdict: The League of Ordinary Gentleman and One Nice Lady