valis2 | The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: the bullet point review. (Reply)

My first try at a livejournal...seemed like fun...so here I am.

Saw a movie that made The Mummy look like Citizen Kane...yes, I utterly and irrevocably wasted two hours watching the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.

Though it had a couple fun moments, overall it was a terrible movie done with enough seriousness to negate the possibility of it being a Mummy "Popcorn & Fun" movie, but with not done earnestly enough to become camp.

Argh!

The canals of Venice are approximately six feet deep. You cannot, I repeat, you cannot pilot a submarine through them. Really. I mean that.

The Bridge of Sighs, directly adjacent to the Doge's Palace and St. Mark's Cathedral, is lovely, and only twenty feet above the canal water level. Thus, given our six feet deep rule earlier, that leaves us with the logical conclusion that Nemo's Nautilus is only twenty-six feet high. Yet we have ballrooms and multiple floor levels.

The Nautilus is shown arriving at Venice presumably at the South end and somehow piloting all the way to the Northern end (it ends up at the Bridge of Sighs, which is over a canal that leads right out into the lagoon). This is absolutely impossible. The Nautilus is shown as being incredibly long and is referred to as "the sword of the sea". THERE ARE NO STRAIGHT CANALS IN VENICE. To get from the South to the North would be patently impossible. The only way it could even be considered would be to use the Grand Canal, but even that is impossible, as it is a pronounced S curve, and the Nautilus is too straight to navigate it, and it comes NOWHERE NEAR the Bridge of Sighs.

In one of the big showdowns between the Phantom and Alan "I'm-Eighty-Years-Young-Watch-Me-Go" Quartermaine, the Phantom is shown going through a door into a lovely, picturesque old cemetery with ivy growing gracefully up tombstones. THERE IS NO CEMETERY ON VENICE!! There is not enough room on Venice for a cemetery. The Venetians (and presumably the Muranese, and Buranese) bury their dead on San Michele, which is a ten minute boat ride from the Venice/St. Mark's side, and you must pay to have people buried there. As soon as you stop paying, they yank the body out and rebury it somewhere on the mainland. They have limited space, so 95% of the people buried there have been there less than ten years. The only section of the cemetery with ivy and picturesque tombstones is the Foreign Quarter where Ezra Pound and others are buried, and the cemetery they showed in the movie was not the Foreign Quarter of San Michele!!

The canals of Venice are only six feet deep. I know I'm repeating myself, but it was such an important point I felt it had to be said twice.

I must mention that destroying St Mark's as it was shown (one of the first buildings that blew up) would have destroyed the Nautilus as well, BECAUSE IT WAS ANCHORED DIRECTLY NEXT TO IT.

There is absolutely no possible way that you could drive a car through Venice. Well, maybe a small one, er, a teeny one, but the one pictured could not have done so. It was far too long. It would never have made the turns, especially not at such high speed, some of the more important bridges would have been too narrow, and with Carnivale ongoing, the casualty rate would have been tremendous.

While we are on the topic of Carnivale, I must mention that it occurs during FEBRUARY!!! M's messenger clearly mentions that it is SUMMER.

In the book Dorian Gray's portrait merely recorded his sins and vices, while leaving his face blemish-free. When he looked upon the portrait he was upset at how terrible a person he was. He was not invulnerable because of it. Looking upon his portrait would not make his invulnerability fade because he was not invulnerable to begin with. Yeah.

What the hell was Mina Harker doing out in the daylight??!!!

Where did Captain Nemo learn kung fu? Why did he disdain the use of pistols in the beginning of the movie, yet SHOOT someone later in the movie?

How did the Invisible Man avoid massive frostbite and hypothermia at the end of the movie? He was naked for some time, after all.

Nice to see Mr. Hyde develop into some sort of kinder and gentler horrid monster. Next he'll be adopting baby bunnies and teaching the art of knitting.

Why was Mina Harker's hair bone straight for 95% of the movie except for one scene where it was completely and inexplicably curly? Do vampires have the ability to perm at will?