After escalating tensions between Britain and Germany in order to start a war and an arms race, Fantom decides to blow up Venice using a series of overly complicated bombs. A team of literary heroes ripped from multiple genres is assembled to thwart him. Largely unintentional hilarity ensues.

The reluctant leader of the League is retired adventurer Allan Quartermain, an English explorer and trader who for some reason is played by the very Scottish Sean Connery. [1]

Other characters include Captain Nemo, Dr Jekyll, Mr Hyde, the Invisible Man [2] and Dante, so it must have been embarrassing for David Hemmings to play someone simply credited as “Nigel”. The film actually did quite well at the box office collecting US$179,000,000 and it apparently remains a cult hit with the Steampunk crowd. [3]

The critics however were less kind. Respected film scribe Roger Ebert gave the film one star (out of four) stating “The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen assembles a splendid team of heroes to battle a plan for world domination, and then, just when it seems about to become a real corker of an adventure movie, plunges into … inexplicable motivations, causes without effects, effects without causes and general lunacy.” Popular movie review website Rotten Tomatoes gave it 17% saying LXG – as the smart film fans call it – was “a great premise ruined by poor execution.” 

Disreputable internet movie critic Mr Cranky gave it three bombs (“will require therapy after watching”) and spent most of his review attacking Roger Ebert’s review. According to Cranky, Ebert spent too much time critiquing the film for an unrealistic portrayal of Venice’s canal system and not enough time on the choppy direction which meant no one saw anything properly. 

He also writes “according to the Ebert School of Criticism, if you give Venice navigable avenues your movie automatically sucks, but if you feature cursed pirates walking around in undead splendour, that’s perfectly acceptable.  Happens all the time.” This is a thinly veiled reference to Pirates of the Caribbean which Ebert adored. It is hard to criticise a few geographical errors while accepting that The Invisible Man, a vampire called Mina and a perpetually youthful Dorian Grey are sailing to the Arctic.

This film was intended to be the start of a blockbuster franchise but although the film ended with an incredibly unsubtle set up for a sequel, no other LXG films were ever made. 

It was clearly the inspiration for Master and Commander where exactly the same thing happened. [4]

The consensus was that the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen took a great premise – assembling a group of diverse superheroes who had never appeared on screen together – and promptly wrecked it.  Colin the Handsome yet Softly Spoken Scottish Proprietor was determined to apply that formula to beer and to make it work at Malthouse. The result is the League of Extraordinary Ales, four heroic beers he is reasonably confident have never shared a bar before. [5]

From Chicago’s Goose Island brewery comes Pere Jacques, an 8.7% Belgian-style Dubbel. This beer won a Gold Medal at the World Beer Championships and has notes of caramel, spice, raisins, funky yeast, fruit and honey with a gentle bitterness (26 IBU).

Further north and even colder, the Canada’s Unibroue makes world famous beers with a Belgian flavour.  One of their most high regarded (99/100 on RateBeer) is La Terrible, a dark 10.5% Belgian-style strong ale. It is described as calling to mind spices, Madeira wine, caramel, raisin, vanilla and black pepper. 

Much to my surprise, Colin discovered a “hidden stash” of Renaissance Craftsman Oatmeal Chocolate Stout (4.9%) which is officially sold out until June 2013. It is made with a little rolled oats and plenty of cocoa nibs which produce a smooth, creamy beer with hints of dark chocolate, coffee, nuts, stone fruit and caramel.

The discovery of these lost stouts was surprising only because Colin does not miss very much in relation to beer. Like most Scotsmen, the only item he sees better is money. It is a little known fact that copper wire was invented by me and him fighting over a penny. Finally, there is currently a rare keg of Epic Repocalypse (8.2%) pouring.  I described this Cascadian Pale/Black IPA/Black IIPA as “hop maelstrom crafted with new season American hops which were air freighted to New Zealand at considerable cost.” It was the first beer into my glass at the 12.12.12 Epic Tap Takeover before I slowed down with a few Hop Zombies. [7]

It’s utterly delicious – bursting with fresh tropical fruit flavours and genuine hop bitterness over a robust caramel malt base.

At the takeover, a number of people expressed surprise that I was drinking a Cascadian Pale Ale given all the rude things I have said about Black IPAs over the years. Allow me to make three points in rebuttal – 1) it’s quite a light-coloured Black IPA 2) it’s quite dark in my corner of the Malthouse and 3) I’m colour-blind. I regret nothing.

Next time, we drink to the health of cats solely to annoy Gareth Morgan.

[1] However, nothing can compare with the casting idiocy of Highlander where the part of a Scot was played by a Frenchman and Sean Connery played an Egyptian. Who honestly thought a lad born in Edinburgh could convincingly portray a character called Juan Sanchez Villa-Lobos Ramirez?

[2] Not David Shearer – the guy in the HG Wells novella who was called Rodney Skinner.

[3] They also presumably love Will Smith’s Wild Wild West because of the mechanical spider which sent audiences into paroxysms of laughter.

[4] It is a cinematic crime that there were seven crappy Police Academy films and we didn’t even get one sequel for the brilliant Ronin

[5] Being a modest fellow, Colin will likely deny being the creative genius behind this idea and will instead attempt to deflect attention and say it was all my fault.

[6] I was planning to compare each beer to a character in the film but sadly Belgium and Canada are yet to produce a super hero. The closest effort so far is William Shatner.  There was a short-lived attempt to create a Captain Canada to rival Captain but apparently having super powers of “unremitting optimism”, “being a proficient skater” and “enjoying free health care” were not considered intimidating

[7] That went about as well as could be expected.

Cheers

Beer Writer
Beer and Brewer Magazine

Links

IMDB LXG – http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0311429/
Mr Cranky LXG – http://bit.ly/11t9Gqq 
Goose Island – http://www.gooseisland.com/pages/home/56.php
Unibroue – http://www.unibroue.com/en/home
Renaissance Brewery – http://www.renaissancebrewing.co.nz/
Epic Brewery – http://www.epicbeer.com/
Malthouse Facebook – www.facebook.com/pages/Malthouse/7084276173
Malthouse Twitter – www.twitter.com/#!/malthouse
Malthouse Taps on Twitter – www.twitter.com/#!/MalthouseTaps
Neil Miller on Twitter – http://www.twitter.com/#!/beerlytweeting
Beer and Brewer Magazine – www.beerandbrewer.com/