The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen
Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation | Release Date: July 11, 2003 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
30
METASCORE
Generally unfavorable reviews based on 36 Critic Reviews
Positive:
3
Mixed:
13
Negative:
20
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
80
Wall Street JournalCollin Levey
Succeeds the same way the original comic books did: by making the conflicts and dilemmas basic enough for a five-year-old, while giving the heroes and villains glamorous outfits and layers of complexity, to thicken the broth.
63
ReelViewsJames Berardinelli
In a summer of high-octane action and testosterone-boosted thrills, this movie is out of its league. Read full review
63
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Rick Groen
The concept is high but everything else is merely fair to middling, one more or less watchable B-movie in megabucks clothing. Read full review
60
VarietyTodd McCarthy
Robinson's script is alive to the material's literary roots, although there is a sense that the brakes have been applied so as not to push into territory perceived as too esoteric for American teenagers. Read full review
60
Film ThreatKevin Carr
The filmmakers tried to give everyone a main storyline and ended up diluting everything. With so many characters, the film lost some focus. Read full review
50
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalle
It depicts the world of a century ago in a way that comments on the anxieties facing the world today, and it does so, at least for a while, with cleverness and a sense of fun. Read full review
50
Miami HeraldRene Rodriguez
Here, finally, is a superhero movie your AP English teacher can enjoy. Read full review
42
Entertainment WeeklyOwen Gleiberman
The movie is based on a 1999 series of comic books by Alan Moore and Kevin O'Neill, but the original tone of deadpan historical audacity has been replaced by a kind of wax-museum literalness. Read full review
42
Portland OregonianKim Morgan
The film wears out its welcome by the halfway mark, becoming a silly spectacle. Read full review
42
Seattle Post-IntelligencerWilliam Arnold
One more bloated effects-o-rama lumbering through a formula plot (super-villain out to rule the world) without much zest, imagination or awareness of its own absurdity. Read full review
40
Austin ChronicleMarc Savlov
Simply put, it’s too much of a good thing, this unreined tumult of chaos. Read full review
40
Dallas ObserverRobert Wilonsky
Moore invested his characters with flaws, with a tangible humanity; God knows they never felt the need to explain themselves, as the film does, rendering it something akin to one long footnote. Read full review
40
SalonCharles Taylor
The irony of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen is that it has the most literate pedigree of any action movie you're likely to see this year or next -- and it's been made by people who seem to have no sense of how to tell a story. Read full review
40
Los Angeles TimesManohla Dargis
These guys have dumbed down a comic book. Read full review
40
The A.V. ClubKeith Phipps
League begins as a smart variation on the summer blockbuster, then loses its nerve in a second half sure to satisfy neither cheap-thrill-seekers nor fans of neglected literary oddities. Read full review
40
The New York TimesA.O. Scott
Has the sweat stains of wasted energy; it's dreary, yet frantic. Read full review
38
Baltimore SunMichael Sragow
How does an embarrassment of riches turn into mere embarrassment? Read full review
38
Chicago TribuneMichael Wilmington
Outrageously vapid and overdone movie. Read full review
38
New York Daily NewsJack Mathews
Having these characters interact is both the joke and raison d'etre of "League." Its story is beyond banal. Read full review
38
Boston GlobeTy Burr
Has the distinction of being much dumber and pulpier than the comic book on which it's based -- the ink practically comes off on your fingers as you watch it. Read full review
38
Charlotte ObserverLawrence Toppman
What a riveting movie The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen might have been! And what a rickety mess it turned out to be when the people responsible lost faith in the origin of the material! Read full review
38
USA TodayMike Clark
The murkiest-looking movie since Ben Affleck's “Daredevil” and about as lacking in charm. Read full review
38
PremierePeter Debruge
Despite its preposterous leaps of logic, it somehow still emerges a reasonably entertaining summer blockbuster. Read full review
30
Washington PostDesson Thomson
It just doesn't work...This isn't a blend of modern and classic so much as a collision. Read full review
30
SlateDavid Edelstein
And you wait--and wait--for the magic of movies. Read full review
30
The Hollywood ReporterKirk Honeycutt
Nothing anchors the lighter-than-air story as it drifts away under the direction of Stephen Norrington ("Blade") into an FX stratosphere where wit, character and vigorous storytelling cease to matter. Read full review
25
Rolling StonePeter Travers
Except for Connery, who is every inch the lion in winter, nothing here feels authentic. Read full review
25
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger Ebert
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. Read full review
25
Christian Science MonitorDavid Sterritt
Opium- addicted Allan Quatermain becomes none other than Sean Connery. At least he gives a real movie-star performance, which is more than the other gentlemen manage. Extraordinary? Balderdash! Read full review
20
TV Guide MagazineMaitland McDonagh
Bloated and incoherent. Read full review
20
L.A. WeeklyJohn Patterson
Extraordinary is the very last adjective that comes to mind. Read full review
20
Chicago ReaderJonathan Rosenbaum
A stiff. I don't know the comic book series, but it could hardly be as lifeless as this leaden adaptation, in which the weapons have more personality than the characters and the nonstop action often feels like no action at all. Read full review
20
Village VoiceEd Park
Even if, per Wilde, all art is quite useless, it need not be quite as useless as this. Read full review
12
Philadelphia InquirerCarrie Rickey
Six guys and a gal who flatline on arrival. Easily the lamest action-adventure fantasy since “Wild Wild West.” Read full review
12
New York PostMegan Lehmann
Unfathomable balderdash. Read full review
10
Washington PostStephen Hunter
It's not brazenly bad or heroically bad or stridently bad. It's bad in all the old, dull ways of being bad: poor performances, absurd story, dreary special effects, witless dialogue and the excessive length of someone taking himself far too seriously. Read full review
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