Review of The League of Gentlemen's Apocalypse (2005) by Squalid J — 22 May 2010

The basic idea of the League of Gentlemen is that the characters from the series send three of their number into our world to force their creators to write some more stuff for them, lest their world destroy itself. Now, my favourite moment in the film, other than the obligatory Dr Chinnery scene (will he ever learn?), comes when we're introduced to The King's Evil, the idea the League are supposedly working on instead of continuing with the series. It's basically a complete tangeant in which we see what The League might have done had they not opted to make their existing series into a movie, and as such, the fact that it's such a highlight is not a good sign. I would happily take a full version of The King's Evil over this film any day.

It's not a bad film, though. It's just a very disappointing one. At its best, the series was awe-inspiring stuff, and expectations were always going to be high. Instead of living up to them, or even coming close, Apocalypse is clumsy, unfocused and only sporadically funny. On the plus side, it looks great and it does have its moments. So it's not a total loss by any standards, then. But neither is it the raging success story that it should have been.