Hollywood has a long history of adapting stories from other media. In recent years, we've seen films based on trading cards and theme park rides, so a movie based on a comic book seems almost quaint and traditional.

"League of Extraordinary Gentlemen" is based on a 1999 comic book series by Alan Moore and Kevin O'Neill, in which heroes and monsters from Victorian era fiction are recruited to stop a grave threat to the British empire.

The comic books were richly detailed, and it was inevitable that some streamlining and simplification would take place when they were adapted to film. This is not necessarily a bad thing; I fully appreciated the comics series only after discovering a web page with extensive annotations and literary citations for the characters and events depicted.

A funny thing happened on the way to the multiplexes, though. Moore and O'Neill's witty, well-plotted story was converted into a depressingly ordinary noisy summer blockbuster.

The film begins in London, in 1899, where several policemen are startled to discover an armored tank rolling through the city. It crashes into a bank, and after blasting through the vault, it disgorges a number of armored Germans, led by a masked man who calls himself the Phantom. Shortly thereafter the same man leads a raid on a German airship hangar, where a scientist is kidnapped.

In Africa, a representative of the British empire is sent to retrieve Allan Quartermain (Sean Connery), and secure his aid in preventing a world war (Yes, "Quartermain". I took the fact that they couldn't be bothered to look at one of H. Rider Haggard's Quatermain novels to verify the spelling of the main character's name as a bad sign).

Their conversation is interrupted by a quartet of men in body armor, brandishing automatic rifles. Fortunately for Quartermain, the rifles jam at a convenient moment and he survives the assault, not only defeating his attackers, but finishing the scene with a brief quip; "Quartermain. Allan Quartermain."

Quartermain is brought to London, where he is introduced to the head of the operation, a man who identifies himself only as "M" (Richard Roxburgh). Had I not been familiar with this character from the comics series, I might have believed that Connery was remaking "Thunderball" once again.

Quartermain is introduced to the other members of the team, Captain Nemo (Naseeruddin Shah) from Verne's "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea", Mina Harker from "Dracula" (Peta Wilson), and Rodney Skinner (Tony Curran), an invisible man, though not "the" Invisible Man, due to copyright issues.

Before they can start working on the case, they're ordered to round up two more members for the team, Dorian Gray (Stuart Townsend, appropriately foppish) and Edward Hyde (Jason Flemyng). the apelike alter ego of timid Dr. Henry Jekyll. U.S. Secret Service agent Tom Sawyer (Shane West) gets swept into the group as well.

The characters have been changed in varying degrees from their original literary depictions, with Nemo being the most faithful to his origins. Hyde has been changed into a huge monster (resembling his indirect descendant, the Hulk), and Mina Harker is a vampire, suggesting that Professor van Helsing's efforts were in vain. Skinner is a good deal less malevolent than Griffin, the original Invisible Man.

The League is dispatched to Venice, where we're treated to the sight of Nemo's submarine, which looks to be about twice the size of an aircraft carrier, negotiating the Venice canals. Suspension of disbelief became a Herculean task at this point.

The group also has to deal with the revelation that one of their number is a traitor. I won't spoil the movie, but the turncoat couldn't have been easier to spot if they had been given a huge handlebar moustache to twirl malevolently as they cackled.

The performances are good to excellent; Shah's interpretation of Nemo made me want to see him in a remake of "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea". Peta Wilson adeptly switches from a proper Victorian lady (albeit one who bitterly complains about Quartermain's paternalistic attitude, in one of the movie's funnier scenes), to a fearsome killing machine. Tony Curran's invisible man has an agreeably cheeky manner, and Jason Flemyng has the film's most memorable performance, alternating between the nervous Jekyll and the beastlike, yet cunning Hyde.

Connery is getting a bit long in the tooth to convincingly portray an action hero, though. He would have been better served if the film had held closer to the graphic novel's concept of Quartermain, an aged adventurer who was well aware his best days were behind him. When Connery starts throwing punches you should be excited, not concerned that he'll fall and fracture his hip.

It's not reasonable to expect a film based on a book to follow it exactly, given that they are two very different methods of storytelling. Still, I'd have liked to have seen the film hold a little closer to Moore and O'Neill's original vision. You do get an occasional hint of it in the film, but you get the sense it's just there to mark time between explosions and gun fights.

Perhaps the most disappointing aspect of the film was the decision to change the League's leadership from Mina Harker to Quartermain. A strong, decisive female lead would have made this film decidedly less ordinary.

I was terribly disappointed by this movie; a fantastic concept was wasted. I trust I'm not spoiling anything when I reveal that the film leaves things wide open for a sequel.

Perhaps the next time around, they'll get it right.