You never know what Sean Connery will be up to these days. He’snot exactly the consummate action star these days, but he was inthe Michael Bay opus “The Rock” and the Catherine Zeta-Jonesdrooler “Entrapment.” And my skin crawls to think of “FindingForrester.” It almost did again, watching the trailers for “TheLeague of Extraordinary Gentlemen.”

‘Ol Seamus looked like he was throwing some slow punches, and hedelivered some super dry lines like, “Naughty, naughty,” throughoutthe two-minute trailers. Thanks to the kind of editing andoverblown sound effects commonly used today, he’s every bit aspotent as he was in his days as James Bond.

While we have the issue of SNL’s Celebrity Jeopardy target outof the way, let’s break down the plot. A curious crew of literarycharacters have been summoned at the turn of the 19th century tosave the world from a dangerous man labeled “The Fantom,” whothreatens to wage war on the innocent peons of the planet.

A mysterious British man who goes by “M” recruitsRodney Skinner (Tony Curran), the Invisible Man, Captain Nemo(Naseeruddin Shah) and James, er, Allan Quatermain (Connery),leaving the motley three to collect the rest of the team en routeto Italy, where the first report of major catastrophe pointsto.

The remaining members are Mina Harker (Peta Wilson), fatedcharacter from “Dracula,” “forever young” Dorian Gray (StuartTownsend) and Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde (Jason Flemyng). Good ol’ boy TomSawyer (Shane West), now an agent with the CIA, gets in by way ofhis reckless, but effective, gun-slinging skills.

I was about to read the graphic novels upon which this film isbased on (written by Alan Moore and Kevin O’Neill), but like everyother college student, I had no time to do such things. Twosessions of summer school, a job and a healthy social life keeps meaway from even reading the Harry Potter series. So sitting down tothis flick was really just an excuse to see Mr. Connery charm hisway through another two cinematic hours of my life.

He’s accompanied by a charismatic group of actors and oneactress (somewhat defeating the purpose of the title itself;somehow the title “The League of Extraordinary People” doesn’t ringwell) who make the joy ride all the more worthwhile. The film isabove-average and more thorough in character development than mostmovies, but there is major fault in the Invisible Man being, well,invisible from the plot for half of the movie.

The real fault in the movie lies in the specialeffects. Captain Nemo has the ultimate submarine and the onlyexisting automobile at the time in the movie, but his forms oftransportation look more like gigantic pieces of his mother’s Chinaset than assault vehicles. But worse, when Dr. Jekyll turns intoMr. Hyde, watch out. You’ll burst into laughter or shake your headin disgust at the ridiculous CGI work used to turn the doctor intobeast. It’s about as bad as when Scrappy Doo went the way of thepossessed in last year’s “Scooby Doo.” It’s a good thrill ride on asunny afternoon, with nothing more and nothing less to write about.Sean does it again.