Review Detail

As with the original, Tom Sawyer sticks out like a sore American thumb amidst all the iconic British pulp characters, but he's much more tolerable in this version, which moves along with the zippy pace of a good Republic serial rather than a dull, leaden 2000s Hollywood action film. Though there is precious little of Alan Moore's groundbreaking deconstructions in this adaptation, James Robinson (writer of the definitive 90s superhero Starman) gets some of his deft characterization and period detail through this troubled production, which is a close Silver Medal when it comes to comic writers.

BionicBob's tasteful choices salvage this movie from an utter wreck to a film you could imagine existing within the meta-world of the League, as fictional characters from the British Empire queue into the cinema to watch a now-Scottish Alan Quatermain and a vampiric Mina Murray battle the forces of evil -- fidelity to the source material be damned.