A League of Ordinary Franchises
I’ll be honest: I went to watch this film not expecting to like it. I thought the premise was an intriguing one – a group of 19th century literary heroes brought together in the name of ‘the Empire’ to fight an evil known as the Phantom, who is intent on bringing war to the world. I just didn’t think Hollywood would do it justice, as all but one of the lead characters are British. The League is comprised of Dr. Jekyll (along with Mr. Hyde, of course), Dorian Gray, the Invisible Man, Captain Nemo, Tom Sawyer and Mrs. Harker, the wife of the man who helped Van Helsing fight Dracula. They are led by Allan Quartermain of King Solomon’s Mines, played in the film by Sean Connery.
This is the part where I would normally explain the plot but, well, there isn’t one. Once the members of the League have been recruited, they spend the rest of the film dodging various plot inconsistencies and running headlong into anachronisms. The film is set in 1899, but both sides seem to have some strangely modern weaponry. The twist is that the man who recruited them turns out to be the Phantom, and he has brought them together to gather samples from all of them to build an unbeatable race of soldiers for the coming war that he is determined to start.
The large number of strong characters in the film do not get enough time and space to themselves on screen for there to be any really good characterisation. As such, they were greatly reduced from the characters in the individual books, and Hollywood has selected traits from each of them to make them more like your common superheroes. Dorian Gray is immortal in the film – withstanding a barrage of machine gun fire into his chest. Possibly not quite what Oscar Wilde intended when he made Dorian eternally young. Similarly with Dr. Jekyll. In Stevenson’s book, Hyde was a small simian-like creature, the embodiment of human evil and vice. In the film, he becomes a giant ape, who by the end of the film realises that he has been a naughty monkey, and helps everyone escape. It’s much like the Popeye effect when Jekyll drinks his potion.
Tom Sawyer was an addition to the film, not being in the original comic book version of the story. It’s hard to see why he was included, lacking the special powers of the others. He introduced himself as ‘Special Agent Tom Sawyer’. The viewer is supposed to believe that Tom has grown up and joined the U.S. Secret Service. Obviously. He clearly is just there to appeal to an American audience. For me, this is the clearest indication in the film that Hollywood can’t, or won’t, do action-adventure outside a set formula.
Despite this, the film does have its merits. As action-adventure films go, it is exciting. The scenes on board Nemo’s submarine are particularly good, but then Captain Nemo and his underwater world is naturally interesting, and a story more suited to this kind of film.
As long as you don’t think too much about the literary sources for the film then it is enjoyable. I would say wait until it comes out on video, as it’s not really worth rushing for, but the effects do warrant the big screen. One of those you’ll either love or hate.
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