"The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen" is a notorious film. Critics hated it, audiences avoided it and Sean Connery credits it for his retirement from movies. Is it really that bad? Well, yes....and no. How bad the film is and how difficult it is to watch really depends on you. If you want an action picture that is all action and the plot and dialog are really not that important, you'll enjoy the film. If you want a film with a decent plot and characters who talk like people, then you better just find another movie. In this sense, it really is dopey.

So what do you want in a film? Do you want lots of action and amazing CGI for its time or do you want a film about people and with a decent plot and dialog? Much of the film ignores the actual story arcs for the characters. Few of the legendary characters in the movie act or seem like their fictional versions from literature and previous movies...more like cartoon versions of them. As for me, I found it incredibly boring as opposed to being bad...boring because the characters just seemed like caricatures.

I've found it fascinating over the past 20 years that with the advances made in special effects techniques, comic book heroes have had an explosion in popularity on the screen. The films, good, bad or indifferent seem to make money with a built in market. We seem to get a few of them every year with accompanying merchandise.

One I liked very much was based on the idea of combining a whole bunch of literary characters from the 19th century into The League for Extraordinary Gentlemen. Some heroes, some villains, some troubled people all get together in the service of the British Empire to find out just who wants to brew a lot of trouble among the European Powers.

It's quite a crew they've assembled, Allen Quatermaine, Mina Harker, Dorian Grey, Captain Nemo, The Invisible Man, Dr. Jekyll and his alter ego Mr. Hyde, and visiting from America Tom Sawyer. They're in for some high adventure, the kind kids eagerly used to read about in the books these people are found in.

The League of Extraordinary Gentleman has a kind of infectious charm that I find irresistible. A lot of that has to do with Sean Connery as Allen Quartermaine, fresh from the continent of Africa, and leader of this band. As of today, this film has been the last screen appearance of the man some word argue is the biggest international star the movies have right now.

I particularly like the scenes that Connery has with Shane West who plays Special Agent Tom Sawyer of the United States Secret Service. I'll bet you didn't know where Tom Sawyer would wind up when he grew up and left the Mississippi. Seems perfectly logical watching this film. Quartermaine lost a son and buried two wives and he bonds with young Sawyer. He even warns him against romancing Mina Harker, played by Peta Wilson whose vampiric proclivities might be a bit much for a young man to handle.

I'm sure The League for Extraordinary Gentlemen got a lot of young viewers going to see it. If any of them get curious enough to read the books these characters are found in, than this film will have done a great service. By the way, the chief villain when he's unmasked is yet another villain found in a series of classic books from that time period and one of the recruited league in fact is a traitor.

I won't say, you'll have to buy or rent the video/DVD.

It took me a while to get around to watching this movie purely because of all the negative press surrounding it. In the end, I saw it was on TV and I decided to finally give it a go; I'm glad now that I never spent money to watch it. For all the lack of credibility, the silliness and the poor plotting, the thing that really sinks this film is the CGI work. There are tons of effects shots and what not and none of them are very credible, whether it be the image of Venice sinking or Captain Nemo's massive submarine rising from the ocean depths. All of these bits look just like what they are: cartoon creations, two dimensional and void.

Still, I ended up enjoying the film on a minor level, mainly thanks to the impressive acting of Sean Connery. The ex-Bond, who publicly quit acting after his troubles during making this film (a whole other story) puts in a strong, steel-willed turn as Allan Quartermain, H. Rider Haggard's literary hero. He's tough, believable and, most importantly, charismatic. He runs rings around the other characters in the movie, although to be fare none of them are fleshed out as much as he is. Shah is a one dimensional Captain Nemo, an Indian martial arts master with no unique features; Peta Wilson is Mina Harker from Dracula, yet she's in no way convincing as a vampire – far too cold and unlovely. Shane West is the imported American actor, a grab for US audiences, but he seems out of his 'league', while the worst actor by far is Stuart Townsend. I just felt this guy was vain and unlikable, and I'm not sure how much of that was acting. Jason Flemyng is always good value but he has little to do here as Dr Jekyll, while Richard Roxburgh plays a one-dimensional character as best he can.

This is a film that works best in the dialogue scenes – unusually. That's because the action scenes are a poorly-edited mess, using that annoying tactic of repeatedly cutting from one battle to another and back again. It's all fancy manoeuvres and footwork, restrained by a kid-friendly rating, and it's the same tired stuff that Hollywood's been serving up for years. Out of all the effects in the film, the only one I liked was Mr Hyde, coming across as a Victorian version of The Incredible Hulk. There are a handful of moments I enjoyed – Dorian Gray's demise being one of them – but they're definitely outweighed by all the flaws elsewhere. Not a film worth spending money to see.