"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.

Continuing my plan to watch every Sean Connery movie in order, I come to The Avengers (1998)Plot In A Paragraph: John Steed (Ralph Fiennes) and Emma Peel (Uma Thurman) two British agents, team up to stop Sir August de Wynter (Connery) from destroying the world with a weather-changing machine.This is why Americans should not remake British TV shows. Whilst they may appreciate its success, they don't understand what actually made it good. This is Connery's worst movie since Sword Of The Valint, some fifteen years earlier. Quite a feat considering that Highlander 2 and King Arthur are in there. I watched this with my 11 year old son why questioned if it was a spoof movie, before stating "I can't watch this" before walking off. I turned it off shortly after to return to later in the day. Again I turned it off. Truthfully writing this review is taking some doing. It just fails on every level. The Movie was a bomb, only grossing $23 million of its $60 million budget at the domestic box office, to end 1998 as the 77th highest grossing movie of the year.

This big-budget flop is not without its good points, seeing as it contains enough offhand weirdness and odd situations to appeal to most bad movie fans. Although its about as far away from the original television series as you can get, there's this retro '60s thing going on with the film which makes it pretty amusing to watch. Although the fact that the cast members are obviously taking everything as a joke does get on your nerves after a while, I consider this to be an enjoyable failure and I must admit that I pretty much enjoyed some of the individual scenes.You know you're in for a crazy time with the film's opening, which sees Steed walking down an apparently normal English street only to be attacked by a number of surprise assailants. For example, at one moment a whistling milkman smashes two empty bottles together to use them as weapons as he lunges as Steed. This exceptionally odd beginning sets the campy tone for the rest of the film, which is not for all tastes it has to be said.Packed with cheesily overemphasised dialogue, lots of one-liners and innuendos worthy of a Bond movie, THE AVENGERS has the benefit of a huge budget to include lots of nifty (but hardly convincing) computer effects. These include an attack by a swarm of mechanical bees, characters walking in see-through bubbles and the climatic "storm within a building" scene which is sufficiently loud and over-the-top enough to be a crowd-pleasing event. Elsewhere, we have the ever-odd Eddie Izzard as a mute henchman, one of the least threatening ever to grace a cinema (or television) screen, and bad guys dressed up as giant multicoloured teddy bears in order to disguise their identities.Ralph Fiennes (looking a lot like a young version of Peter Cushing) essays the role of the straight-faced John Steed, and is pretty good; Uma Thurman plays the leather-suited Emma Peel: one wonders why she agreed to be in such a fantastic movie again after the failure of BATMAN & ROBIN but I guess she's a glutton for punishment. Sean Connery is the non-threatening chief villain, and has had enough experience with Bond villains in order to know how to play it, but his performance is somewhat weak. Elsewhere, we have Jim Broadbent as the wheelchair-bound Mother, leader of the agents, and a funny turn from Patrick Macnee as an invisible agent (!).The major problem is the obvious cutting that went on with the film after initial test screenings, which undoubtedly make events confusing at times. In my mind this just adds to the weirdness. See it for yourself to find out how.

The Avengers (1998): Dir: Jeremiah Chechik / Cast: Ralph Fiennes, Uma Thurman, Sean Connery, Jim Broadbent, Fiona Shaw: One of the best looking stupid films ever made. Based on a 1960's T.V. program with a title referring to those wishing to avenge their punctuality upon the film's release. Ralph Fiennes and Uma Thurman play John Steed and Emma Peel and they must stop a world domination scheme involving bad weather. That has got to be the dumbest idea ever conjured up. The climax is so stupid that cable stations would be wise to substitute it for the real weather channel. Director Jeremiah Chechik previously made the much more entertaining National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation but here he switches gears and hits a concrete wall. The difference is that one film is genuinely funny while this one is laughable from the lowest end of stupidity. Fiennes and Thurman sound less intelligent with every line. After the idiotic Batman and Robin, one would think that Thurman would be more reluctant to repeat herself. Jim Broadbent is completely wasted, but it is Sean Connery that goes over the top with lines like, "The weather is no longer in God's hands but in mine." Is he kidding? This is perhaps the most embarrassing career move for Connery. The production is fetching otherwise this pointless spectacle is about as much fun as diarrhea. Score: 1 / 10