The Avengers (1998)

In my review of The Fugitive (1995), I observed that if a movie is to be done based on a venerable TV show, then it had better remain as faithful as possible to its source.

It goes without saying that most producers fail to follow that sage advice.

Now, most of you will remember the 1961 TV series "The Avengers". It was a very smartly-written, funny and well-acted escapist action show featuring the adventures of British Secret Agent John Steed (Patrick Macnee), who often worked (for a couple of seasons, at least) with Emma Peel (Diana Rigg). The series itself was a hit for eight seasons and made stars of its leads, Macnee and Rigg in particular (there were many actors and roles in the series through the years, you see, but the Steed/Peel pairing seemed to be the one that people recall most fondly).

Naturally it should have been made into a movie, so conventional Hollywood wisdom dictated. Never mind that it took almost 30 years after the series ended for them to get their act together and do it. They had a great show; just build on its strengths, get actors who could best channel the chemistry and power that Macnee and Rigg so exemplified as Steed and Peel and you had a winning formula. Then, instead of making a movie about "The Avengers", they made The Avengers - a horse of an altogether different color.

First and foremost, the main idea was good and seemed as silly as many of the show's episodes: a megalomaniac British lord, Sir August DeWynter (Sean Connery) is able to control the Earth's weather and plans to make the world pay for their weather or die if they try and stop him. And the only ones who can stop him, of course, are Steed and Peel.

As most good film students will tell you, there is all the difference in the world between a movie's general idea and its final execution. What pushes a movie into the positive is a well-written story, engrossing acting and tight direction. If you're going to make a movie based on a television show that 75% of the planet is familiar with, then this equation is even more important to follow.

Or, at least, you'd think it would be.

Now, as trivia would have it, the original cast would have been Mel Gibson as Steed and Nicole Kidman as Peel. This might have worked and, just maybe, would have helped the film as a whole. But fate, intervening as it oft times does, had other plans. Instead, the part of John Steed fell to Ralph Fiennes, a man whom most will recognize as the gaunt, humorless lead in films like Quiz Show, The English Patient and Strange Days. Quite naturally, he was expected to play the part of the jovial, elegant John Steed. However, all the time he's onscreen it looks as if he's wearing clothes that don't fit him quite right,and acts as if he's afraid he'll move naturally. Not exactly a confidence-builder.

And Mrs. Peel fares no better as embodied by Uma Thurman. You'd think she could effortlessly play someone that's slinky, sexy and altogether dangerous; she'd played as much in Final Analysis, Pulp Fiction and later on in Kill Bill: Volumes 1 and 2. But instead of bringing the same qualities aboard here, she struggles with a British accent that fades in and out, manages to appear in a trance through the film (except for the parts when she's supposed to look that way) and considering a development that occurs is revealed in the first half of the film, Uma does nothing to convince us she is nothing more than herself doing the same bad role twice.

Then comes the part of Lord DeWynter. As essayed by Sean Connery, he easily bests his co-stars in terms of acting and screen presence, considering this is his worst role since Highlander II: The Quickening. Consider; this is the man who has been James Bond, Robin Hood, King Agamemenon, King Richard and King Arthur. He can (and has) played any role with a strong conviction - except for those he's apparently in for the paycheck (The Rock, The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen). To be sure, he roars, yells, swordfights, threatens and cajoles his heart out as DeWynter, but never for a minute does he contribute any more or less to his role than "Sean Connery playing a bad guy", albeit with a heavy, lingering aroma of aged ham. In other words: paycheck.

There's even time in the middle of the movie where DeWynter tries to seduce a comatose Mrs. Peel by dancing around a room of his mansion, chucking her down on a spacious bed and slowly undressing her. I don't care if this is a former James Bond we're talking about here, this was just plain creepy and Connery, who's suave and charming even in his eighties (watch Entrapment for proof), comes across as a dirty old man.

But there are worse problems still with The Avengers than mere acting can be blamed for. Jeremiah Chechik was a director who started out in TV commercials and graduated to films like National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation and Benny & Joon. However, when faced with the prospect of directing an action-packed film, Chechik seems ill-equipped for the demand. The dialogue scenes are clumped together out of pure exposition and plot explanation for the confused. And as far as the action, many set-pieces come and go without much explanation or sense (I've yet to understand where the mechanical bees came from, or what they had to do with DeWynter's weather plot). Of course, this was edited down from its original 115-minute running time to its present 89-minute form. So, if the ebb and flow of the action doesn't seem to click, that may attribute to some of it.

The rest of the problem comes from the script itself. The main characters come, of course, from "The Avengers" creator Sydney Newman. But the remainder of the film is written by Don MacPherson, who had previously written The Bawdy Adventures of Tom Jones, Absolute Beginners and...that's about it. I can understand, though, why The Avengers was his last work since 1998; everything is written so slipshod and characters most of grew up with are reimagined as shoddy Austin Powers wannabes who try to replace character and plot with "style" and "attitude". Not that it makes much difference, considering how bland and poorly drawn-out everyone is. And just to make everything feel irreverent and wild (like the TV show) they threw a scene in from left field where Connery details his plans to possible investors while all are dressed in brightly colored bear suits. That's right; FREAKING BEAR SUITS, heads and all. It's like a team mascot convention gone wrong.

You know what it is; since the success of movies like Men In Black and the Austin Powers series, there have been attempts to try and recapture the same exuberance and flip attitude with familiar characters in new settings. The difference between those films and The Avengers, however, is that the aforementioned also had smarter scripts, funnier jokes and better chemistry between their leads.

Sad as it is, for a $60 million film to earn back barely over a third of its budget just goes to show that if you''re not going to bother to make the right kind of homage to a classic show, not even its most hard-edged fan will bother to watch it.

In another time, with different writers, actors and director, perhaps The Avengers would have earned back its budget and been an experience for fans and non-fans to cherish. Maybe.

What a shame it is to consider that for all its money, intentions and bungled resources, the only thing that The Avengers went to prove is that this particular Steed and Peel are no longer needed.