Back? Ok, now to talk about the movie itself:
The setting is late 19th century (1890 something, i think it says): a lone villain is terrorizing europe with the goal of causing tension between the nations and thrusting the world into a catastrophic, and yet unheard of, "world war" that will no doubt result in MILLIONS of people dying (good thing he's gonna to fail, right?).
In response to growing tension among the european nations, britain sends forth an elite team of superhumans tasked with the sole goal of stopping this mysterious villain and averting world war. And who is this superteam? Well, it's an eclectic mix of free-domain characters (the best kind of characters, if you lack originality): Dorian Grey (his picture ages, but he does not), Dr Jeckyl/Mr Hyde, an invisible man, Captain Nemo, a chickified Dracula (actually, a female character from stoker's book) and, of course, Sean Connery and an american as themselves, for they are the most extraordinary ones of all! Sadly, that last part isn't a joke; the movie genuinely seems to believe this.
Ok, so sean connory and the american are actually supposed to be john quartermaine and tom sawyer (the former i'd never heard of), but really these alternative identities only come into play in the naming and nothing more - sawyer doesn't even trick anyone into painting a fence.
Now, before we go into the rest of what passes for a plot, let's just take a moment to analyze this situation. We have a team of heroes composed mostly of men, including two (visible) young men (tom sawyer and dorion grey), and a single woman.
Hmm, i wonder if there'll be a bit of statutory romance subplot?
Anyways, this entire "super" team isn't actually formed yet and the first half of the movie has Sean Connery (the team leader) tasked with enlisting a few more members before going off to venice where they are to fight the villain and avert the impending war. Seems simple enough, right?
However, in the process of trying to enlist some of the members, sean connery and company find themselves confronted by the very villain they've set out to stop. Naturally, our heroes aren't the type to let this little obstacle get in the way of their mission and they quickly mop up all but the main villain before continuing on with their journey, enlisting more men and heading off to venice... to stop the badguy.
...
Anyway, as the team heads off to venice, there's a brief interlude aboard nemo's sub (the nautilus, if you're not familiar with the story, "20,000 leagues...") where it's shown that romantic tensions are abound (shock!) as both sawyer and dorion have designs on the sole female member (i didn't see it coming, i swear!). Sawyer is obviously supposed to be the audience's favourite and the fact that she's icy to him at first just reinforces the notion that we know he's going to win her in the end. There's also some brief "character development" that takes place, mostly between connery and sawyer, but it's largely uninteresting and too vague for anyone to possibly care about. I'm sure it's tied in with connery's character, quartermaine, but who honestly cares?
Before you even try to answer that rhetorical question, i'm going to beat you to the punch: not even the movie!
That's right; i know this is going to sound weird, but it's like the writer's got tired of the script halfway through and just sort of ended it. By the time the team gets to venice, all the "plot development" that had been taking place up to now just sort of ends (thank god?) and we're left with a bunch of loose ends that seem to get tied up out of grudging obligation. After a lengthy (and surprisingly dull) fight in venice, the characters all seem to forget their various independent motivations and become firmly attached to a track that finishes out the movie and ends with "the good guys win". The random character development ends, the teams' internal conflicts are resolved, evil is defeated and the world is saved. Period. And it all happens exactly like that: one moment, mistrust and rivalry amongst the team, the next, everyone's buddies. There's not even lingering sentiment!
Oh, and that love story they were setting up earlier? It also just sort of ends. No, it's not that it never actually was supposed to be a romantic subplot; i mean, they have the awkward romantic tension, the "she's warming up to you" scenes and everything else you'd expect from a romantic subplot. In fact, the only thing missing is the "final kiss" scene we all know should be there at the end, but for some reason isn't. The most we get is the vampire and the american standing "close-ish" to each other at the end of the movie (well, closer than females stand to me, at least) while the team walks off into the sunset to embark on their next wacky and, no doubt, poorly written adventure.
And that's it.
It's really all kind of stunning. I mean, i don't know what else i can say about the movie because even the movie seemed to have given up on itself; it KNEW it was bad.
At any rate, if you paid good money to see this movie, i pitty you. If you enjoyed this movie, there's obviously something wrong with you because even the movie doesn't think itself good enough for a complete plot. I give this movie one imaginary star (out of any number of real stars) just for knowing when to end it... halfway through and with hanging plot elements. Hats off to you, league!
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