The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen

The Avengers is not the first group of superheroes coming together to save the world, and the Avengers is not the first group of superheroes to jump from the comic book format to the silver screen either.
Several years before them we had The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, a film based on the comic of the same title, an original idea by legendary comic writer, Alan Moore.
The idea was to put together the main characters of several books that were mostly British or somehow related to the British empire. From left to right in the picture those characters are none other than Dr. Jekyll (Jason Flemyng), Dorian Gray (Stuart Townsend), Captain Nemo (Naseeruddin Sha), Allan Quatermain (Sean Connery), Mina Harker (Peta Wilson), the Invisible Man (Tony Curran) and an adult Tom Sawyer (Shane West).
Certainly they are not all heroes but their abilities is what makes them interesting. To see these characters interacting, arguing, bickering and then coming together to save the world is simply amazing .Dr. Jekyll becomes a Hulk-like Mr. Hyde, Mina Harker is revealed as a vampire of sorts, Dorian Gray faces any threat because he is invulnerable, the Invisible Man is the perfect spy. Then also see these superbeings defer to the natural leadership of Quatermain who has no supernatural abilities other than his natural instinct as a hunter.  Though really for me the best part was to see the Nautilus. I have never seen a more perfect rendition of the "Sword of the Seas". Nemo is not presented as a vulgar terrorist and when he is seen in conjunction with his glorious creations (the Nautilus is not the only one), well Verne could not be prouder.
Though the screenplay for the movie difers a lot from the comic book original story (which was mindboggling) and still I think the new plot is also great. Where else can you see all these wonderful characters interacting like this? And of course there is the villain who had to be someone merciless and of keen intellect. Here the villain is M (apparently the Sherlock Holmes's Moriarty). Also one is a traitor working for M.
I loved this movie and I only hated that no sequel was ever made. The second part was to be even more exciting than the first since it puts the League against the likes of the Martians (the ones imagined by H.G. Wells in War of the Worlds). Just imagine.
Five stars out of five for this one.

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