"The Avengers" is one of the biggest money-losers of the decade. I've read estimates that it lost $40,000,000...and with a film this clumsily and expensively made, I can certainly understand it. Initial previews went disastrously for the studio and they had the brilliant idea of trimming 26 minutes from the movie. Unfortunately, this made the film choppy and incomprehensible...and audience members stayed away in droves. So why did I decide to watch it? It was simply too infamously bad for me to resist it!The plot is a confusing mess involving a duplicate Emma Peel (Uma Thurman) and a guy who can apparently control the weather (Sean Connery). But the characterization of these and all the people seemed unimportant and everyone in the film lacks depth...and you have no idea WHY they do what they do. Instead the film focuses heavily on overly mannered dialog (to the point of being incredibly annoying), lots of expensive stunts (something never seen in the original TV show) and gadgets (such as giant robotic wasps, an invisible agent as well as a board meeting where EVERYONE is inexplicably dressed like the Grateful Dead bears...also the sorts of thing not seen in the TV show, thank God). Clearly, the folks who made the film had a severe lack of reverence for the source material...which would irritate the die-hard fans. And, the incomprehensibility and constant style over substance would certainly irritate all the rest of us! This is an expensive looking film which just doesn't make much sense, isn't entertaining and substitutes stunts and gadgets for plot. So, is it as bad as its reputation? Perhaps not...but dollar for dollar, you'd be very hard-pressed to find a film that delivers this little for the dollar! It's wastefully bad...and about as much fun as a case of the Shingles.

I'd never seen this before, but it's currently on HBO NOW, and caught my eye. I thought maybe the beginning was a spoof of some sort before the actual story started, but no, the whole thing was like this. It's so boring. I believe it was supposed to be campy, but it's just dry. There's no chemistry between Fiennes and Thurman. And why do they talk in that monotone drone?!? I stuck it out, but it's one of the few times when I really felt like the time spent watching a movie was a complete waste. Yikes. The story itself is pretty non-existent, too. It's like a string of cliché spy and action movie scenes strung together. It's actually hard to believe it's a major studio release with big name actors.

John Steed (Ralph Fiennes) is a top agent of The Ministry. Someone has sabotaged the weather shield Prospero program. Mother (Jim Broadbent) brings in former head of the program Emma Peel (Uma Thurman) to help investigate as a partner with Steed and as a prime suspect. Her double is seen on the security camera and Father (Fiona Shaw) wonders if she suffers from mental illness. They visit former Ministry man weather-obsessed Sir August De Wynter (Sean Connery).This is trying very hard to be funny. It's a lot of wacky but none of it is actually funny. The movie comes with all kinds of bells and whistles. The other problem is that none of it is thrilling. It is so silly that it can't maintain any tension. It's a basic miscalculation at the movie's DNA level.

As I kid I used to really like this film, but as an adult I realise the problems with it are many and notable, both for plot and characters. As a child I liked the idea of there being a film with a primarily British setting, seeing an obvious cultural association, but now I realise that it's doing the exact opposite and straight up making fun of what British people aren't like any more!So what's the ketchup? John Steed is a British Agent working for the secret Ministry. After a weather control project named Prospero is destroyed, the chief suspect and project designer, Emma Peel, is brought in, claiming her innocence. Together, both Steed and Peel are led to the home of August De Wynter, a former agent obsessed with the weather and believe that this fixation may be related to the sabotage of Prospero.Now, the most jarring problem with this film is that it is very, very dated. The way the characters act and their traits are very much based on those of the original 1960's show, where plummy accents and established gentry ruled the waves, etc, etc. The only problem is, most people in the 1990's didn't really know about a show that stopped airing the best part of 30 years earlier, and couldn't really take seriously the fact that the last time British people spoke in such a stereotypical way was when Winston Churchill led Britain against the armies of Germany! Either way, it comes off as terribly out of place, and doesn't make the characters the least bit interesting.Another very jarring point, for some reason London is empty! No cars, no people, no planes landing at Heathrow, nothing! As someone who lives in London, I beg to differ!Sean Connery I give points to though, he carries off the role as the villain very well, and when he's on screen I'm glued! His line delivery, his mood changes, his general air and presence kept me gripped.The story is pretty bog standard, stop the obvious villain baddie, the end! The effects are pretty bog standard. For some reason an invisible man and killer mechanical Bees are thrown into the mix and come off looking totally out of place, it doesn't really hold a consistent tone.Overall, I can't really recommend it, even as a film you can just shut your brain off to. The story's bland, the characters are bland, the effects are bland, the only good thing to my mind is Sean Connery as the villain. Apart from that, give it a miss!