A fantastic series of comics by the esteemed AlanMoore (and Kevin O’Neill) in which various heroes and villains of victorian novels are thrown together in a series of JamesBond style adventures.
CaptainNemo?, MycroftHolmes?, DoctorJekyll?, the InvisibleMan? and many others. Wonderful art, pulp plots and perfectly victorian writing.
How does MycroftHolmes? manage to get up to JamesBond style adventures? IIRC he had trouble motivating himself down to the club each day...
Mister Mycroft is a good stand in for M. The others tend more towards the action. --Vitenka (I'll just add that the whole Mycroft / Moriarty thing is dropped in the movie)
Very novel (apology for the pun) - and yet I can't help but feel there is something missing. I just didn't particularly enjoy it.
Allegedly there's a film in the works. Though after the disaster that (apparantly) was FromHell? it may have been shelved.
I thought FromHell? was good... Did it not do well?
I'd heard it was an utter flop - simply because the 'we want to use awesome cinematography' which worked to differentiate the comic and make it so terrifying were simply status quo for the screen. But I may have been misinformed. I haven't personally seen it. (And after reading the comic, do not want to. Although I oppose the principle, any copies of FromHell? that come too near me may be burnt out of self preservation.) --Vitenka
I recently saw a trailer for the film while at the cinema, so I guess that this film is not too far off showing in the UK. Looked quite fun as well. - Tsunami
Yeah - having seen the trailer again, I'll say it looks better than I had thought. SeanConnery? as (almost) IndianaJones?. The flying silvery car thing seems a bit out of idiom though. --Vitenka
The movie is good, at least in my opinion... Good characters, some fun lines, general over dramatics etc. If you've read the comic first, however, be prepared for a number of changes. The whole style is significantly more action based than the comic and the character list is slightly different. Overall though, I think the changes worked well... --Kazuhiko
It came out? Damn - and since the only film I do know about coming out (due to overabundance of posters) is terminator three, I wouldn't even have gone in and discovered it. ForShame?. --Vitenka (Now, when can I go see?)
I saw it on that little island across ThePond so it might not be out over here yet. --Kazuhiko
MoonShadow concurs - the movie is good, a lot of fun. The characters that were carried over from the comic were done extremely well, and even the token American, suprisingly enough, just about fits in (unlike the last couple of JamesBond movies).
Just don't read the novelization of the movie. It's as abysmal as the original comic is wonderful. Though obviously the writer has read the source novels for the characters and explains where the token American's best friend is (which I'd wondered about), the writing is *dreadful*. Even having a JamesBond ancestor show up at the end couldn't save the book. --Nataku
Vitenka saw the film recently. SpoilerWarning(s) abound in the following. It's stayed in rotation at the <ultiPlex for a lot longer than most films. Amusingly, it was with my mum visiting, and she thought we were going to see a LeagueOfGentlemen? movie. I'll leave you all to imagine your own twisted combination of the two.
Anyhow, it's a fun movie. Not as deep as the comic, but it works as a good plot. The American kid seems to only exist for one not-quite-decent PunchLine? near the end of the film, but apart from that it's fun. The characters are a bit shallow - it's less "Do I recognise this person?" and more "Let's have fun with these famous characters." The CGI is very variable. Some of it is wonderful and wonderfully silly (the nautilus rising out of east london docks, for example) and some of it is poor (the 'hulk' for example.) There's no tension in the film at all - but Dorian makes one of the most wonderful on screen villains in a long time. Some of the concepts from the novels are presented wonderfully. What is the nautilus? It's this universes equivalent of a trident submarine. So does it have ICBM capability? Of course it does. There was a bit of a problem with suspension of disbelief. Not only did you haver to believe in the victorian steamPunk era, but also in the JamesBond machinations. (Examples: They have shown an ability to target a vehicle belonging to them, and they have a second ICBM launching hole. So when the villain escapes in their mini-pod, why not just blow it up? Second example, the crystal sound vibration detonating bombs. Which they set off with a record. Which the bad guy lets them know about by having a bell rung. By a timer... So, he has bombs and timers... Hummm.) Still, a wonderful romp. I do have to wonder how much kids who don't recognise some of the old characters (Dorian, Quartermain and miss Murray are the less likely ones, but even Doctor jekyll and the invisible man are less known than they might be now.) And, of course, the wonderful comment "I kept getting Quartermain and Quatermass mixed up." Sequel anyone? "As the aliens come down, the wizened old scientist swings on his whip across stonehenge. The aliens are turned back: This is a local stone circle, for local people." Oh - and the quick homages to the creators are wonderful.
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