Lancelot falls in love with Guinevere, who is due to be married to King Arthur. Meanwhile, a violent warlord tries to seize power from Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table.
Despite trying to keep his swashbuckling to a minimum, a threat to California's pending statehood causes the adventure-loving Don Alejandro de la Vega (Antonio Banderas) and his wife, Elena (Catherine Zeta-Jones), to take action.
Director:
Martin Campbell
Stars:
Antonio Banderas,
Catherine Zeta-Jones,
Rufus Sewell
A young thief (Antonio Banderas), seeking revenge for the death of his brother, is trained by the once great, but aged Zorro (Sir Anthony Hopkins), who also pursues vengeance of his own.
Director:
Martin Campbell
Stars:
Antonio Banderas,
Anthony Hopkins,
Catherine Zeta-Jones
The notorious monster hunter is sent to Transylvania to stop Count Dracula who is using Dr. Frankenstein's research and a werewolf for some sinister purpose.
Director:
Stephen Sommers
Stars:
Hugh Jackman,
Kate Beckinsale,
Richard Roxburgh
Adventurer Lara Croft goes on a quest to save the mythical Pandora's Box, before an evil scientist finds it, and recruits a former Marine turned mercenary to assist her.
Director:
Jan de Bont
Stars:
Angelina Jolie,
Gerard Butler,
Chris Barrie
A mild-mannered chemist and an ex-con must lead the counterstrike when a rogue group of military men, led by a renegade general, threaten a nerve gas attack from Alcatraz against San Francisco.
When an escort girl is found dead in the offices of a Japanese company in Los Angeles, detectives Web Smith and John Connor act as liaison between the company's executives and the investigating cop Tom Graham.
Renowned adventurer Allan Quatermain leads a team of extraordinary figures with legendary powers to battle the technological terror of a madman known as "The Fantom". This "League" comprises seafarer and inventor Captain Nemo, vampire Mina Harker, an invisible man named Rodney Skinner, American Secret Service Agent Tom Sawyer, the ageless and invincible Dorian Gray, and the dangerous split personality of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.
In an interview with The Times, Kevin O'Neill, illustrator of the comics, said he believed this movie failed because it was not respectful of the source material. He did not recognize the characters when reading the screenplay, and claimed that director Stephen Norrington and Sir Sean Connery did not cooperate. Finally, O'Neill said that the comic book version of Allan Quatermain was a lot better than the movie version, and that marginalizing Mina Murray as a vampire "changed the whole balance". See more »
Goofs
When Fantom is escaping from Quatermain, he throws down his mask, but in the next shot of him escaping out the window, he has his mask back on. See more »
In the original theatrical release, during the opening credits when Alan Moore's credit first begins to appear on screen, it reads "Based on the COMIC BOOK by Alan Moore" but suddenly changes to "Based on the GRAPHIC NOVEL by Alan Moore". See more »
Alternate Versions
For the Swedish release, approximately 33 seconds were cut from various violent scenes in order to receive an 11 certification. See more »
I've been reading the comments page in a somewhat bemused fashion. It seems to be divided between people who don't like the movie because it's not enough like the original graphic novel and people who don't like it because they've never heard of half of the characters that are members of the League. The latter seems to me to be an unutterably silly reason for disliking a film. Does nobody read the classics anymore? Nobody reads Oscar Wilde, Bram Stoker, Robert Louis Stevenson, Jules Verne, H.G. Wells, or Sir Arthur Conan Doyle? I find that difficult to believe. As to the former--not enough like the graphic novel, in other words--just how in the heck can a screenwriter accommodate the dark and twisted visions of Alan Moore in a two-hour Hollywood movie, anyway?
I don't believe that one can compare anything written by Alan Moore to what ends up on the screen being ostensibly "based on the graphic novel". (The same applies to FROM HELL, which is another one most people pan, and one which I think is under-appreciated even though the style is breathtaking. I don't even want to think about the reaction that will ensue once THE WATCHMEN comes out!)
What seems to have been missed by most people is that this movie is about style as opposed to substance. It's based on a graphic novel. That's a fancy way of saying it's based on a comic book. On that level, the film succeeds admirably. The characters are archetypes of their literary forbears. They aren't supposed to be, strictly speaking, human. Of course the plot is grandiose, impractical, and over-the-top. Hello? Aren't most comic books like that? Good heavens, isn't most of STAR WARS?
I don't claim that this is a masterpiece. I do claim that's it's fun to watch if one approaches it with a willing suspension of disbelief. For a couple of bucks shelled out at the DVD rental shop, it takes one to a different world for close to two hours. On that level, it's worth a rental. It's also worth a rental, once one watches the movie, to listen to the commentary from various actors and to realize just how well these so-called "unknowns" do assorted accents that aren't even close to their own. Plus the golfing anecdotes are amusing. (And I don't even like golfing.)
This ain't CASABLANCA. Nor is it TITANIC, for which I eternally thank the gods. (Now, THERE was an overhyped piece of inaccurate trash that pretended to be history, but I digress.) But it's kind of fun, anyway, as long as one doesn't take it too seriously.
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I've been reading the comments page in a somewhat bemused fashion. It seems to be divided between people who don't like the movie because it's not enough like the original graphic novel and people who don't like it because they've never heard of half of the characters that are members of the League. The latter seems to me to be an unutterably silly reason for disliking a film. Does nobody read the classics anymore? Nobody reads Oscar Wilde, Bram Stoker, Robert Louis Stevenson, Jules Verne, H.G. Wells, or Sir Arthur Conan Doyle? I find that difficult to believe. As to the former--not enough like the graphic novel, in other words--just how in the heck can a screenwriter accommodate the dark and twisted visions of Alan Moore in a two-hour Hollywood movie, anyway?
I don't believe that one can compare anything written by Alan Moore to what ends up on the screen being ostensibly "based on the graphic novel". (The same applies to FROM HELL, which is another one most people pan, and one which I think is under-appreciated even though the style is breathtaking. I don't even want to think about the reaction that will ensue once THE WATCHMEN comes out!)
What seems to have been missed by most people is that this movie is about style as opposed to substance. It's based on a graphic novel. That's a fancy way of saying it's based on a comic book. On that level, the film succeeds admirably. The characters are archetypes of their literary forbears. They aren't supposed to be, strictly speaking, human. Of course the plot is grandiose, impractical, and over-the-top. Hello? Aren't most comic books like that? Good heavens, isn't most of STAR WARS?
I don't claim that this is a masterpiece. I do claim that's it's fun to watch if one approaches it with a willing suspension of disbelief. For a couple of bucks shelled out at the DVD rental shop, it takes one to a different world for close to two hours. On that level, it's worth a rental. It's also worth a rental, once one watches the movie, to listen to the commentary from various actors and to realize just how well these so-called "unknowns" do assorted accents that aren't even close to their own. Plus the golfing anecdotes are amusing. (And I don't even like golfing.)
This ain't CASABLANCA. Nor is it TITANIC, for which I eternally thank the gods. (Now, THERE was an overhyped piece of inaccurate trash that pretended to be history, but I digress.) But it's kind of fun, anyway, as long as one doesn't take it too seriously.