Disclaimer: I’m a HUGE fan of the original The Avengers television series (well, at least the Emma Peel era). It’s brilliant. With great anticipation, I went to see this film in the theater back in 1998. It had a lot to live up to, but I tried to be fair with my assessment. Unfortunately, the movie failed on almost every level. I rewatched The Avengers last night for the first time in 20 years. I wondered if time had been any kinder to the film.
The short answer is no - The Avengers is still (and will always be) a steaming pile of dung. The movie is a bloated, boring, and often confusing mess. There are so many problems I have with this one that I could quite literally write pages. However, for brevity’s sake, I’ll limit my discussion to two of the most obvious issues:
1. The relationship between Steel and Mrs Peel was one of the main things that always made The Avengers special. It was the soul of the entire series. In the movie, it never works. To begin with, Ralph Fiennes and Uma Thurman have nothing that resembles real chemistry. They never click and it all feels forced. The relationship in the original was always flirtatious, but never went much further than a knowing look. Having Steed and Mrs Peel engage in a real relationship as pictured here destroys all the mystery.
2. The plot is a complete disaster. You can read about how the movie originally ran much longer but was gutted after comments form test audiences. The resulting mess is full of plot holes, events with no explanation, and an apparent lack of logic. Not that I think these missing minutes would have helped that much, however. If you put the cut footage back in, you’d probably only add to the films utter dullness. I was bored to tears.
I could go on about the acting, the ridiculous special effects, the poor editing, the invisible Patrick Macnee, or the fact that so much of the movie feels random simply for the sake of being random. But really, why bother? With a movie this bad, the time I’ve already spent on The Avengers is more than it deserves. While I rate the original series a 9/10, I’m being generous with the 2/10 I’m giving the movie.
The short answer is no - The Avengers is still (and will always be) a steaming pile of dung. The movie is a bloated, boring, and often confusing mess. There are so many problems I have with this one that I could quite literally write pages. However, for brevity’s sake, I’ll limit my discussion to two of the most obvious issues:
1. The relationship between Steel and Mrs Peel was one of the main things that always made The Avengers special. It was the soul of the entire series. In the movie, it never works. To begin with, Ralph Fiennes and Uma Thurman have nothing that resembles real chemistry. They never click and it all feels forced. The relationship in the original was always flirtatious, but never went much further than a knowing look. Having Steed and Mrs Peel engage in a real relationship as pictured here destroys all the mystery.
2. The plot is a complete disaster. You can read about how the movie originally ran much longer but was gutted after comments form test audiences. The resulting mess is full of plot holes, events with no explanation, and an apparent lack of logic. Not that I think these missing minutes would have helped that much, however. If you put the cut footage back in, you’d probably only add to the films utter dullness. I was bored to tears.
I could go on about the acting, the ridiculous special effects, the poor editing, the invisible Patrick Macnee, or the fact that so much of the movie feels random simply for the sake of being random. But really, why bother? With a movie this bad, the time I’ve already spent on The Avengers is more than it deserves. While I rate the original series a 9/10, I’m being generous with the 2/10 I’m giving the movie.
2/10
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