Find This Man A Script

There are certain movies that keep popping up on my TV and I don't know why. They aren't very good, weren't critically-acclaimed and didn't make a lot of money but for some reason the cable channels insist on making them part of my life. One such movie is "The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen." For those of you who haven't seen it (oh you lucky, lucky few), the movie came out in 2003. The plot comes from a graphic novel in which several famous literary characters (Tom Sawyer, Dr. Jekyll, The Invisible Man and Dorian Gray, just to name a few) come together to fight a supervillain (spoiler alert: It's Sherlock Holmes's arch-nemesis, Professor Moriarty) who is intent on starting a world war. Think of it like one of those comic book cross-over episodes that were really popular in the 80s, like when the Transfomers showed up in G.I. Joe. Now, I never read the graphic novel so I wouldn't want to pass judgement on that, but the movie just didn't work. It was a little too green-screen heavy for my tastes and I've always believed that if you are going to basically film an entire movie in front of a green-screen then you should at least have pretty good special effects. This movie didn't and the entire thing suffered as a result.

Yet, for some reason channels such as FX show it roughly every two weeks. I can only assume the company owns the movie rights and are trying to make their money back through advertising sales, since they clearly aren't going to make any money with a surge of people who want to buy the DVD. Along those lines, when it was on a couple weeks ago "The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen" was part of FX's "DVD on TV" segment, which shows things that would normally only be found among the DVD extra (like outtakes and deleted scenes) as the movie goes to commercial. I happened to be passing by the channel during one these DVD extras, specifically an interview with Sean Connery. During the interview Sean said that he took this role because he while he didn't totally understand the script he had passed on roles in both the "Harry Potter" and "Lord of the Rings" franchises because he didn't understand those and he simply didn't want to make that mistake again. Wow. Talk about turning a bad decision into a horrible one.

Hey, we've all been in a position where we miss out on a great opportunity and when the next one comes along we latch onto it without really thinking it through just because we don't want opportunity to pass us by a second time. For example: you miss out on a chance to buy stock in Google and Facebook, so suddenly you invest a bunch of money in MySpace. It happens. No real harm, no real foul, right? At least that was what I was thinking until the last couple of days. First, for some reason the EPIX channel has been showing many of the old Bonds films in a row. Then "The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen" was randomly on one of the paid cable channels this afternoon. Because of this I had Sean Connery on the brain and it got me to thinking: what was the last new movie that he was in? A quick hop over to his IMDB page gave me the answer. Would you like to know the last movie that screen icon Sean Connery was in? 2003's "The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen." This cannot stand.

I am well aware that history is littered with fine actors in bad movie. I know that some of them even had this misfortune of dying after being in a bad movie, never knowing that it was going to be their last role. I guarantee Raul Julia never would have been in "Street Fighter" if he had known it would be his last movie. Sean Connery still has a choice. Think about all the iconic roles he has played: James Bond, Jim Malone (Untouchables), Henry Jones (Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade), Marko Ramius (Hunt For Red October), William Forrester (Finding Forrester), Draco (DragonHeart), John Patrick Mason (The Rock)... (Admittedly, those last couple might only be iconic to me.) The point is, he can't go out in a crap movie like "The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen." Apparently Connery considers himself retired. I can only assume this is because he no longer trusts his management team and I don't blame him since they probably advised him to take that last role. But he should be pissed that his career currently appears to have ended on such a flop. There has to be one more great role for him out there somewhere. I don't care if it is nothing more than a cameo role in some ensemble film, he can't go out with that movie as the last thing on his resume. Just make one more good appearance and end on a high note. After that he can quietly retire back to wherever he is hiding out now and hopefully "The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen" will be replaced on my TV by something much better.