3 out of 5

Director: Stephen Norrington

To quote Warren Ellis: God help me, it made me smile. When I first saw this, I disliked it because of Sean Connerys mugging. When I saw it again, I had just read the comic and hated it. When I saw it a third time, I was bored. When I watched it this fourth time, I realized that the movie works as pretty premium trashy popcorn entertainment if you dispense with any and all expectations. …Though, I suppose, you could say this about any movie. Fictional literary characters get together to stop evil stuff from happening. There are some scenes that are very nicely put together in this movie. The beginning has a nice flow to it, and the super long battle at the end of the movie is an amazing job of editing various bits together. Although the movie was criticized for its CGI at the time, watching it now, I felt that director Stephen Norrington used some of his low-budget chops to put the pieces together fairly well. A couple of large sets look questionable, but overall, it still holds up. You dont care about that characters, the dialogue is awful, it butchers the comic, and as many, many critics pointed out, nothing makes any any any sense. Its a mess. But you know what? Im fine with that.