Cast: Ralph Fiennes ,Uma Thurman, Sean Connery, Jim Broadbent, Fiona Shaw, Eddie Izzard, Eileen Atkins, John Wood, Patrick Macnee
Director: Jeremiah S. Chechik
Producer: Jerry Weintraub
Screenplay: Don MacPherson
Cinematography: Roger Pratt
Music: Joel McNeely
U.S. Distributor: Warner Brothers
Having seen The Avengers, I can understand why Warner Brothers was reluctant to hold advance screenings. This film is an absolute mess. It looks like the regurgitated leavings of something watchable, a cinematic abomination that got pulled apart and put back together so many times that it lost all semblance of coherence. Did Halloween's Michael Myers edit this with his knife? To make matters worse, nothing in this movie proved capable of grabbing my interest, which turned the ninety minutes I spent in a theater into a period of unrelieved tedium. The Avengers fails in almost every possible way, from acting to writing and direction. Heck, the film makers couldn't even get the cameos right.
I wanted to like this film, because, like almost everyone else who has ever watched an Avengers TV episode, I have a certain fondness for John Steed and Emma Peel (especially Emma). Unfortunately, this motion picture has been so badly mismanaged that it's hard to imagine anyone actually enjoying it (or, for that matter, understanding it). The film, like the series that inspired it, is supposed to be part spoof and part spy adventure, but the finished product doesn't succeed as either. In fact, if it weren't for the A-list cast, this movie surely would have been a prime candidate for a direct-to-video release.
In a nutshell, The Avengers tells the tale of how ultra-suave secret agent John Steed (Ralph Fiennes) and his sexy scientist sidekick, Emma Peel (Uma Thurman), tangle with megalomaniac Sir August De Wynter (Sean Connery), who is trying to blackmail the world using Prospero, his weather-controlling machine. Steed and Peel are the perfect mismatched couple -- he plays by the rules, she believes that they were made to be broken -- but that doesn't prevent them from working well together, or from developing a slight romantic attachment. In their quest to thwart De Wynter, Steed and Peel encounter a number of dangerous obstacles, including a brutal henchman (Eddie Izzard) who looks like a Clockwork Orange reject, a swarm of giant mechanical insects, a Peel doppleganger, and a high-level double agent. Their only allies appear to be their boss, an invalid codenamed "Mother" (the always-reliable Jim Broadbent, looking like he's auditioning for a zombie part in the next Living Dead movie) and an invisible man (Patrick Macnee) living in the basement of the Ministry's archives.
All of that might sound straightforward, but it really isn't. I spent about half the movie trying to figure out what the hell was going on and how one scene connected to another (The Avengers has no transitions), and the other half not really caring. This film is a perfect example of a poorly-composed and constructed movie. When a picture is this incoherent, the blame can usually be shared equally by the screenwriter, the editor, and the man in charge of it all, director Jeremiah Chechik (Benny & Joon). In the end, since the film is not credited to Alan Smithee, one has to lay the bulk of the responsibility at Chechik's feet.
For years, I have advocated the return of Sean Connery to the Bond series, but as a villain. Given the actor's undeniable charisma and occasional fondness for scenery-chewing, it seemed like a perfect match. However, after watching him fumble his way through The Avengers, I'm having second thoughts. Granted, De Wynter isn't a particularly interesting bad guy to begin with, but Connery's portrayal is devoid of gusto. This is not one of the actor's finer moments. To appear in this mess, he must have (a) lost a bet, (b) agreed to the part while drunk, or (c) gotten paid a boatload of currency. My money's on (c), but you never know.
Based on the previews, I thought Ralph Fiennes might be a reasonable choice to succeed Patrick Macnee with the umbrella and the bowler, but, halfway through the movie, I realized I was wrong. Steed is supposed to be cool and dashing, but never emotionless. Fiennes plays him like he's a sleepwalker. Still, he's better than Uma Thurman, who seems at a complete loss as to what to do with Peel. She wavers uncertainly between Ice Queen and Vamp, and we're never sure what to make of the character. Neither Steed nor Peel shows any hint of real humanity or vulnerability, which makes them difficult to care about. And, unlike Macnee and Diana Rigg on the small screen, their sense of camaraderie is forced. There's no real warmth between them. Speaking of Macnee, he is given a small role, but there's a problem -- for whatever reason, the film makers chose only to use his voice, not his face. He is playing (and I'm not kidding about this) an invisible man. And where's Rigg? After reading the script, she probably declined to appear. Then again, maybe she was never asked in the first place (for which she's probably grateful).
There was some MPAA rating confusion about The Avengers. The early previews for the film clearly identified it as being a "PG" movie, but the actual release carries a "PG-13." There's really nothing in the film to warrant that, with one minor exception -- a single use of the "f-word." What's curious is that this particular expletive seems to have been dubbed in after the fact. It's not unreasonable to speculate that Warner Brothers, not wanting the film to be tagged with a "wimpy" "PG," added one really bad word to bump the rating up.
One of the best things about the original Avengers was the clever repartee between Steed and Peel. It was fun to spend an hour with these two. The movie tries in vain to rekindle this chemistry, but doesn't come close. The witticisms that Fiennes and Thurman lob at one another not only lack bite, but they aren't delivered with conviction. In a different context, some of them might have been funny, but here, they don't even provoke a grin. It's not just sad; it's depressing. In fact, the entire movie is depressing. I can't recall the last time I was so disinterested in a series of pointless action scenes. When it comes to TV shows transformed into movies, this has to be the worst effort to date. For that dubious honor, it edges out Mr. Magoo. And that probably says all that needs to be said.
© 1998 James Berardinelli