Starring Sean Connery, Naseeruddin Shah, Peta Wilson, Tony Curran, Stuart Townsend, Shane West, Jason Flemyng, Richard Roxburgh
Written By:
Directed By: Stephen Norrington “LXG” is a based on a comic book or graphic novel by Alan Moore and Ke
Studio:
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“LXG” is a based on a comic book or graphic novel by Alan Moore and Kevin O’Neill (I think O’Neill?). I didn’t get a chance to see this in the theaters because I heard mixed reviews about it, but I was still interested in seeing the movie eventually.

I liked the idea about this comic book/ movie. Each character is based on old literature characters and they become the first superhero group. You have Allan Quatermain (Sean Connery), Captain Nemo (Naseeruddin Shah), Mina Harker (Peta Wilson), Rodney Skinner: The Invisible Man (Tony Curran), Dorian Gray (Stuart Townsend), Tom Sawyer (Shane West) and Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (Jason Flemyng). The movie is about an evil villain called “The Fantom.” Who wants what everyone villain wants, the world. A person called M (Richard Roxburgh) gets Allan Quatermain and a bunch of other legendary characters together and they form the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. Some characters are better than others in the movie. It’s kind of laughable to think Sean Connery can still kick arse in a movie but his fight scenes in LXG work. The character is supposed to be old, and out of his prime. I think I liked Captain Nemo the best, especially in the fight scenes because he can kick some butt. I also liked Rodney Skinner’s character played by Curran. I liked Curran in the 13th Warrior, and he has been in Blade II as well. The director of Blade (Stephen Norrington) did this movie so if you liked that movie; this movie is along those lines with directing. I haven’t seen any of the Blade movies because well, I’m freaked out with vampires and scared of them. I think they killed me in a previous life or something haha.

Anyway, the movie is entertaining but there are many many flaws in the film. The story is really weak, and the main villain just wasn’t scary or evil enough. My other complaint about LXG is the graphics. Especially watching it on DVD, you can tell every time they are in front of a blue screen because it’s lighter than the foreground. It’s like the designers forgot to darker it to make it blend together with the foreground. Mr. Hyde didn’t look right either. The creature looked weird and weak in my opinion. One minute he was in a big latex suit with long arms, and then other scenes it was CGI. I think it worked sometimes, than it looked too fake other times. Most of you know I’m really picky when it comes to CGI so. But I think I prefer Mr. Hyde in the latex suit because it looked better and more believable. Call me old fashion I guess. Other reviewers will complain about how the movie messed up all the characters but I haven’t read the comic books or read most of these novels about these characters to know anything about them. I think the one complaint I heard from reviewers was the addition of Shane West’s character Tom Sawyer. The main reason was he wasn’t in the comic books and it’s just another Hollywood thing to not have it all European characters in a movie. I think that’s stupid, and I felt the Tom Sawyer character was a good addition. The filmmakers probably wanted to give the group a different feel and approach to the way Europeans do things. I don’t know; I didn’t have a problem with that character. Other than that, I didn’t really have any problems with the movie.

The picture and sound is top notch. My house was shaking when I was listening to it on my new surround sound system. The picture was crisp, maybe too crisp when it came to the CGI like I stated before. The DVD contains some cool extras. There’s a making of Featurette broken into sections. First one deals with the origins of the characters, and the actors that play them. It shows some behind the scenes footage throughout the different Mini-Featurettes. There’s one about Nemo’s automobile and I felt like I was watching Monster Garage. But it was still very cool to see how the car was made. There’s also a feature about Jason Flemyng’s Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde character and you find out that a lot of it was a body suit and not CGI. But there was CGI used. I believe one of the FX persons on the film said they liked to use both and it works better that way. The deleted scenes were okay, nothing really special about them. What I found really weird was a special message on the DVD and it was anti-drug commercial. What the hell is that doing on the DVD? And this coming from someone who is “straight edge” haha. Anyway, if you are a little bit curious about the movie, check it out but it does have a lot of problems so beware.

Features:
Commentary by Jackie West, Steve Johnson, John Sullivan, Ian Hunter & Matthew Gratzner
Commentary by Trevor Albert, Peta Wilson, Jason Flemying, Tony Curran and Shane West
Making-Of Featurette
12 Deleted Scenes

Audio:
ENGLISH: Dolby Digital 5.1 CC
SPANISH: Dolby Digital Surround
FRENCH: Dolby Digital 5.1

Video:
Widescreen 1.85:1 Color (Anamorphic)

Subtitles:

Favorite Scenes: I liked the fight scene in Dorian Gray’s library.
Rating: PG-13
Running Time: 110 minutes
Extras Rating:
Overall Rating: