Combination Plate 12

Brief commentary on various films and books:


The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, a film

This film is apparently based on a "graphic novel," or a comic book for those who don't read them. I don't read them. Friends who do read them, after hearing that I had seen the film, rushed to reassure me that all films based on "graphic novels" aren't this bad.

Having seen others which I did enjoy I assured them that I was aware that there were good films out there, even if they were based on comic books.

I thought the film was a waste of time and money: the motto of the powers-that-be must be something similar to "Millions for Special Effects: Not one cent for plot or story or character development."

It is a shame because the concept has considerable potential: take a group of extraordinary 19th century fictional characters and treat them as if they were superheroes gathered together to fight a monstrous threat to civilization. The cast of characters is fascinating:

Robert Louis Stevenson's Dr Jekyll and his evil alter ego, Mr Hyde;
Oscar Wilde's Dorian Gray, whose portrait aged while he remained young;
H. Rider Haggard's Allan Quartermain, adventurer and Great White Hunter;
Jules Verne's Captain Nemo, inventor and captain of the Nautilus, the world's first submarine;
H. G. Well's the Invisible Man, or actually a thief who stole the formula; and
Bram Stoker's Mina Harker (now a vampire).

Also included in the League is Mark Twain's Tom Sawyer, who sort of barges in without an invitation, much as the young would-be samurai tags along with the hired samurai in Kurosawa's The Seven Samurai. Hmmm, there are eight in the League, if one counts Jekyll and Hyde separately

I wondered at times whether the creators had actually read of the literary works from which these characters were drawn, especially when viewing what the special effects types came up with for Mr. Hyde. Now, in the novel, he is described as ugly, but in the film he was bizarre-- resembling someone who didn't just use steroids, but had them for breakfast, lunch, and supper.

Captain Nemo's submarine, Nautilus, is equally bizarre, distorted beyond any rational idea of what a submarine might resemble, even for a 19th century submersible. It is so distorted that it looks top-heavy and incredibly narrow, at least to me anyway.

And what is Tom Sawyer doing here? He supposedly is some sort of government agent, whose talent seems to be handling a six-gun. I wondered why they didn't select one of the heroes of the dime westerns that were popular around that time.

Early in the film, I was puzzled as to why one of the greatest fictional characters of all time, and one whose intellectual abilities would have been incredibly useful in dealing with a master criminal, was missing. I mean Sherlock Holmes, who definitely belongs in any League of Extraordinary Gentlemen from the 19th century. The answer was obvious once the identity of the master criminal is revealed--Professor Moriarty! Holmes would have identified him immediately, so Holmes couldn't be included, if Moriarty's identity is to be kept secret, for awhile anyway.

The plot is absurd and inane: Moriarty, in disguise as a government agent, gathers the superheroes together to fight a supposed threat to civilization. In reality, he just wanted to get them together so he could take samples from them and create a serum that would turn any group of ordinary people into an invincible army. However, once his plot is revealed, they then became a real League in order to fight him. This makes no sense because it would have been far simpler and safer for Moriarty to collect his samples individually, with no reason for getting them together in the same room.

Overall Rating: a waste of everybody's time and money-- that belonging to the cast and crew and backers of the film and the audience. There is no real attempt to develop the characters-- they were there to display their "talents" in the most simplistic and rudimentary manner. The real stars of the film are the makeup and special effects crews.

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Michael Gregorio
A Critique of Criminal Reason
Historical Mystery, set in Konigsburg, Prussia, 1804
Hanno Stiffeniis: A judicial detective

Hanno Stiffeniis left Konigsburg to take a position as procurator, or an investigating magistrate, in a small town. However, he is called back when Konigsburg is terrorized by a series of inexplicable murders. No one can figure out how victims died. Some think the devil is involved while others blame French agents for the crimes, hoping to terrify the populace before Napoleon's army invades. Konigsburg's procurator is stumped, and Stiffeniis is called in to aid him. However, when the procurator becomes ill and incapacitated, Stiffeniis must take over.

The title is a play on a famous and real work by the city's most famous citizen, Immanuel Kant, whose Critique of Pure Reason was published a decade or so ago. The aging philosopher has his own ideas about how to solve the murders, and he begins to instruct Stiffeniis accordingly in his system--a combination of criminal psychology and the scientific method. Kant had met Stiffeniis years ago and was impressed by his mental flexibility and willingness to break away from tradition. In fact, it was Kant who persuaded the royal court to bring Stiffeniis back.

Gregorio's depiction of the times and place are among the many strengths of the novel. Since I know little about the real Kant's life, I can't comment on whether this is Kant or Gregorio's invention. In any case, the depiction of the Kant character is fascinating as he faces his own impending death. Hanno Stiffeniis is a complex character in his own right, as he struggles with his devotion to truth among the complexities of his time, especially with an invading army not far off.

If you like stories with a strong development of time and place, such as found in the mysteries with Steven Saylor's Gordianus the Finder and CJ Sansom's Matthew Shardlake, then this series is for you.

I'm eagerly waiting for the second, Days of Atonement, and the third, A Visible Darkness, in the series to become available.

Overall rating: highly recommended, 5/5 stars.

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Robert Holdstock
Mythago Wood
An SF novel


Holdstock's Mythago Wood is a fantasy, and a rather unique fantasy. It doesn't fit in with the typical fantasies that crowd bookshelves today--those that are based on the Arthurian or the Tolkien modes. It is unique.

Mythago Wood is an ancient, mysterious, and mostly unexplored forest somewhere in England. One of its many unique characteristics is that it is larger, far larger, incredibly larger on the inside than it appears to be from the outside. One might almost think of Doctor Who's Tardis here.

Another of its stranger characteristics or powers is the generation of imagos. The name of the wood appears to be a combination of "myth" and "imago." One might think about "monsters from the id" here. Mental constructs come alive in the forest and eventually take on a life of their own. A thief who robs the rich (who else has money?) and occasionally shares it with the poor, becomes a legendary character over the centuries and comes alive in Mythago Wood.

Or one may create a dream lover, and if one lives close to the Wood, such as the Huxley family does, an imago of that dream lover comes alive. Mythago Wood is on their land, at least as far as official records show. But, the official records take no note of what can be found in that small primeval wood.

The story has some Freudian overtones to it. The father, George Huxley (George Orwell and Aldous Huxley?), has explored the Wood for decades. Over the years, he, consciously or unconsciously, creates several imagoes. One is a beautiful young woman. After his death, his sons, Christian and Steven, both become obsessed with the young woman (a combination of the Oedipal complex and sibling rivalry?). Along with Freud, one can see Biblical influences in the struggle between the brothers--Cain and Abel, Ishmael and Isaac, and Esau and Jacob--to gain the father's approval or at least control the father's heritage.

There are several stories set in Mythago Wood, but from what I gather, each story is unique, similar only in the location.

Overall Rating: 4/5 stars

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Fred Vargas
The Chalk Circle Man
A mystery set in contemporary Paris, France
Commissaire Jean-Baptiste Adamsberg--a police procedural

This is the first novel in a series that includes 8 novels, as of 2008. In this work, Commissaire Adamsberg has just arrived in Paris to take over as chief of police in the 7th Arrondissment. He has gained a reputation for solving insolvable crimes out in the provinces, so all are interested to see how well he does in Paris.

It's been quiet since he arrived, except for the chalk circles. Many mornings the citizens of Paris awaken to find that someone has drawn a chalk circle around a discarded object. It could be a dead pigeon, an empty wine bottle, a gum wrapper, or a crumpled-up piece of paper. There's no pattern that anyone can see. It is dismissed as the work of a harmless crackpot by everyone, except Commissaire Adamsberg, who sees something ominous here. And, eventually, he's vindicated, as, one morning, the body of a dead woman is found inside the chalk circle.

Did the drawer of the chalk circles kill her or did drawer just happen to find the body?

One of the most interesting elements in the novel is Vargas' depiction of Commissaire Adamsberg and some of the other characters encountered in the investigation. To be honest, I almost feel sorry for the police in this novel, for they end up playing "straight men" to the very quirky Adamsberg and numerous inhabitants of the 7th.

Overall Rating: highly recommended, 5/5 stars.