The Good

I think that the makers of this film should be congratulated for trying to helm such epic subject matter.

The Bad

This is a movie that seemed to have too many characters for its own good.

In The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Blade director Stephen Norrington gave us his take on Alan Moore's comic book of the same name. It features characters out of literary classics like Allen Quatermain (Sean Connery), Tom Sawyer (Shane West), Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (Jason Flemyng), and Captain Nemo (Naseeruddin Shah) among others. They have been brought together by Queen Victoria to fight the evildoers in the world. However, once we get passed establishing who all these characters are we then find out that they have been pitted against a foe that wishes to destroy the planet.

All in all The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen's primary flaw is that there's just enough movie here to service this story. While I think Norrington should be given credit for what he tried to achieve, this movie sadly seems that by the time it got going it was over.

Features

Commentary Tracks and Animated Pop Up Trivia Track

The creators of this DVD have put two commentary tracks on this Blu-ray release. They are:

- Commentary by Jackie West, Steve Johnson, John Sullivan, Ian Hunter and Matthew Gratzner

- Commentary by Trevor Albert, Peta Wilson, Jason Flemying, Tony Curran and Shane West

I chose to listen to the second one mainly because I recognized the names Peta Wilson, Jason Flemying and Shane West. Overall, I was kind of disappointed as I think the amount of voices on this track sort of made everyone afraid to let loose and really talk. Also, nothing that was said really went beyond cursory production details or the actors and others talking about how great it was to all work together. Check this out if you are a fan of this movie otherwise you might want to try the other track.

The Animated Pop Up Trivia Track offers information about this movie's production and characters as the film plays. I sadly didn't have a lot of time so I only watched a tiny portion of this.

Interactive First Person Shooter Game

Offering 12 unique play modes this is actually a set-top game that users can play. While I think it's somewhat weird using a Blu-ray player for a game that is clearly remedial, perhaps if you are big fan (or a little kid) you will enjoy clicking around with this.

Video

2.35:1 - This film looked really sharp on the Blu-ray player that I screened it on. There are a lot of blacks and grays and everything seemed really well compressed for this release. In fact, I wouldn't mind going back and seeing one of the earlier standard DVDs because there is no way that they could look nearly as good as this release does. Also, there is a lot of quick moving action and that all serves to help enhance the cinematic experience that this is supposed to have on Blu-ray Disc.

Audio

Dolby - DTS Surround Sound. The audio for this release complimented the picture really nicely. There was a fullness to it that went really nicely with the images. Again, I couldn't help feeling as I was watching this movie that it was only 3/4's of the way done. At 110 minutes this film played in a very rich way but it seemed to not have enough juice, even with solid audio, to pull off the payoff that the setup seemed to establish.

Package

Showcasing Sean Connery on the cover of this Blu-ray disc (as well as the rest of the main cast), this cover seems identical to the theatrical one-sheet and Standard DVD cover from the original release. The back showcases a description of this film, a Special Features listing and technical specs.

Final Word

I remember when this movie was first released and I was surprised that it didn't fare better at the box office. I guess it can't be considered a failure because it did do $66 million in the US against a budget $78 million. However, with worldwide numbers bringing this movie's theatrical total to $180 million, I guess this film could be considered a pretty big success. At the same time, I tend to think that they probably wanted this film to gross somewhere in the range of $250 million. When you have a large cast that's based on a very popular comic (by a very popular comic writer), I am guessing that while the suits were happy with the numbers they probably weren't falling all over themselves.

In closing, I think that The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen could certainly have a place in anybody's Blu-ray collection but something tells me it's half-finished production values could leave them wanting.

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen was released July 11, 2003.