A Disappointing Continuation

This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

Blistering performances.

If you have ever been seriously involved in the comic book world, this movie hits home. The comedy is great and so are the characters. The dark comedy makes it even better in my opinion although I wouldn't recommend it for children under twelve.If you have been involved in the comic book world, you can easily relate to the movie characters. That is what made it a good movie for me. All the characters were well developed and well acted. Granted, I think it takes a certain type of person to like this movie but there are plenty of us out there.A friend showed me the movie in 05 and I had no clue it was around otherwise. It is definitely worth seeing even if you aren't a comic book geek.

James Robinson started out with a pretty good idea although I was hoping for a character based more on the comic book guy from "The Simpsons". He had enough money to make a technically solid feature out of his material, and he did a fairly good job of casting (except for Cary Elwes). I won't bother to summarize the plot but will just address what went wrong. And enough is wrong to render this thing genuinely terrible.It appears that Robinson was inspired to totally change his original ending late in the game, but was not inspired enough to rewrite the first half of his screenplay (very lazy). Which means there is a HUGE disconnection between the first and the second halves of the movie. This is not a good thing because in the first half Robinson provides film language elements (signs and syntax) that point in an entirely different direction from the way the film ends up going. This 180 degree change of direction can work if the writer/director plants subtle clues in the first half that only register with the viewer at the end of the film, or when thinking about it the next day. Robinson planted no such clues and did no foreshadowing. The whole idea of film is to effectively tell a story; bottom line is that writers and directors who do this well are considered talented. Robinson should either learn his craft or find another profession.As I was watching it I gave it more credit than it deserved. I was waiting for them to reveal that the mother and the robber had just set up the store-owners to teach them a lesson. After a point I had to abandon this idea and began to wonder if it was a parody without any humor. If that's the idea then someone should explain to Robinson that to be successful a parody should be funny.There were some very good shots in this movie. Natasha Lyonne gave a particularly good performance even if it was a grown-up version of her "American Pie" character. So a lot of good work was totally wasted on something that doesn't work on any level which is very sad.

As one of said comic book collecting geeks, I could enjoy aspects of this movie but also being a screenwriter, I don't understand why this guy got hired to write "League"... although since it sucked, too,I guess it all makes sense in the end. I guess if you persist enough eventually Hollywood gets curious enough to hire you. But this movie is really pretty lame and what could've evolved into something interesting became a lot of loser-go-crazy gun-play in the end, which was uneccessary and boring.

the problem(s) with this film is one of desire. our main character doesn't have any. the story is told through one young boy and all he does really is hang out at the comic book shop wanting to be in with the owner. but the film becomes a morality tale about what not to do, and ceases to be a story, and our hero does little more than just watch....very boring. and the one interesting villain is introduced and then forgotten about. cardinal screenwriting rules. the ending is pseudo-tarantino, but then maybe somebody should have told the film's writer/director that even tarantino can't do tarantino anymore.