The action now moves to the frozen lakes of Mongolia, where the enemy leader (whose identity I would not dream of revealing) has constructed a gigantic factory palace to manufacture robot soldiers, apparently an early model of the clones they were manufacturing in "Attack" of the same. Like New Orleans, another city with a ground-water problem, Venetians find it prudent to bury their dead in above-ground crypts.īut never mind. But hold on: Venice of all cities doesn't have graves because the occupants would be underwater. As the car hurtles down the non-existent streets of Venice, enemy operatives stand shoulder-to-shoulder on the rooftops and fire at it with machineguns, leading us to hypothesize an enemy meeting at which the leader says, "Just in case they should arrive by submarine with a fast car which hasn't been invented yet, I want thousands of men to line the rooftops and fire at it, without hitting anything, of course." Later, there is a sinister encounter in a Venetian graveyard, among the crumbling headstones. When he finds something-an underwater bomb, I think, although that would be hard to spot from a speeding car-he's supposed to fire off a flare, after which I don't know what's supposed to happen. Its driver, Tom Sawyer, has been sent off on an urgent mission. Dozens of other buildings sink into the lagoon, which does not prevent Quartermain from exalting, "Venice still stands!" Now back to that speeding car. Later, there is a scene of this same crowd engaged in light-hearted chatter, as if they have not noticed that half of Venice is missing. It is Carnival time, and Piazza San Marco is jammed with merry-makers as the Basilica explodes and topples into ruin. Maybe the filmmakers did their research at the Venetian Hotel in Venice, where Connery arrived by gondola for the movie's premiere.īombs begin to explode Venice. In no time at all there is an action scene involving Nemo's newfangled automobile, which races meaninglessly down streets that do not exist, because there are no streets in Venice and you can't go much more than a block before running into a bridge or a canal. At one point, the towering Nautilus sails under the tiny Bridge of Sighs and only scrapes it a little. It's hard enough for gondolas to negotiate the inner canals of Venice, let alone a sub the size of an ocean liner, but no problem "The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen" either knows absolutely nothing about Venice, or (more likely) trusts that its audience does not. Nemo volunteers his submarine, the Nautilus, which is about 10 stories high and as long as an aircraft carrier, and which we soon see cruising the canals of Venice. Impossible to get there in time, Quartermain says, apparently in ignorance of railroads. When is the meeting? In three days, M says. M informs them that the leaders of Europe are going to meet in Venice and that the mysterious villains will blow up the city to start a world war. Hyde looks uncannily like the WWE version of Fat Bastard. Jekyll, but here Hyde expands into a creature scarcely smaller than the Hulk, and gets his pants from the same tailor, since they expand right along with him while his shirt is torn to shreds. We are not too surprised to discover that Mina Harker is an immortal vampire, since she had those puncture wounds in her throat the last time we saw her, but I wonder if Oscar Wilde knew that Dorian Gray was also immortal and cannot die (or be killed!) as long as he doesn't see his portrait at one point, an enemy operative perforates him with bullets and he comes up smiling. These team members have skills undreamed of by the authors who created them. Henry Jekyll ( Jason Flemyng), whose alter ego is Mr. Quartermain and friends are able to dispatch them with some head-butting, a few rights to the jaw and skewering on an animal horn, and then he goes to London to attend a meeting called by a spy master named-well, he's named M, of course.Īlso assembled by M are such fabled figures as Captain Nemo ( Naseeruddin Shah), who has retired from piracy Mina Harker ( Peta Wilson), who was involved in that messy Dracula business Rodney Skinner ( Tony Curran), who is the Invisible Man Dorian Gray ( Stuart Townsend), who, Quartermain observes, seems to be missing a picture Tom Sawyer ( Shane West), who works as an agent for the U.S.
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