Twenty years ago, an adaptation of Alan Moore’s ‘The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen’ proved such a disaster that the original 007 never acted again. Tom Fordy speaks to stars Jason Flemyng and Stuart Townsend about the problem-plagued, money-losing mega-franchise that wasn’t
The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen assembles a splendid team of heroes to battle a plan for world domination, and then, just when it seems about to become a real corker of an adventure movie, plunges into incomprehensible action, idiotic dialogue, inexplicable motivations, causes without effects, effects without causes, and general lunacy. What a mess.
And yet it all starts so swimmingly. An emissary from Britain arrives at a private club in Kenya, circa 1899, to invite the legendary adventurer Allan Quartermain (Sean Connery) to assist Her Majesty s Government in averting a world war. Villains have used a tank to break into the Bank of England and have caused great destruction in Germany, and each country is blaming the other. Quartermain at first refuses to help, but becomes annoyed when armored men with automatic rifles invade the club and try to kill everybody.