The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen

It's such an intriguing premise: comic book artist Alan Moore imagined that seven Victorian fictional figures - Allan King Solomon's Mines Quatermain, Dracula's old flame Mina Harker, the Invisible Man, Dr Jekyll (plus Mr Hyde), Tom Sawyer, Wilde's immortal Dorian Gray and Jules Verne's Captain Nemo - might pool their considerable forces to take on a lunatic warmonger known only as the Fantom. 'Suspend' and 'disbelief' are the key words required here because, so far as this reviewer is aware, the car was still in its infancy during the Victorian era and certainly couldn't leap buildings. In much the same way, an ocean-going vessel the size of a nuclear sub surely couldn't negotiate the canals of Venice. And yet it begins so well. Sean Connery's sharp-shooting adventurer is coaxed out of African retirement to gather a team of experts, each armed with his or her own innate powers. Introductions are made and the audience rubs its hands. Then Tony Curran's Invisible Man opens his invisible mouth and spouts ... guff! Worse follows. Logic and continuity fly out the window. True, the effects and sets are marvellously fantastical and there are one or two neat comical allusions to the heroes' literary roots. But where's the excitement, the thrills, the tension, the style?