One of the most frustrating things about Hollywood studios is their inability to learn from mistakes. When they learn from mistakes, this doesn't happen fast enough to spare the audience from certain atrocities. In 1998, following the disastrous results of Batman & Robin, Warner Bros executives probably knew that shoving 1960s television camp into the eyes of 1990s cinema audience isn't such a good idea. But that knowledge didn't prevent them from creating another disaster, this time in the form of The Avengers, action comedy directed by Jeremiah Chechik.
The Avengers is based on the popular 1960s TV show. Its television remake has a plot set in some kind of fantasy world that features 1960s fashions and late 1990s technology. Protagonist is Jake Steed (played by Ralph Fiennes), British secret agent who is assigned to new partner, scientist Dr. Emma Peel (played by Uma Thurman). Mother (played by Jim Broadbent), their boss from Ministry, sends them to investigate who sabotaged Prospero Project, government's secret programme of weather manipulation. Two of them quickly discover the identity of perpetrator - Sir Augustus de Wynter (played by Sean Connery), successful businessman and former Ministry agent who wants to use Prospero Project for his global blackmail scheme.
There are many reasons why The Avengers became one of the worst commercial disappointments of 1998. Choice of director - Jeremiah Chechik, responsible for the disastrous remake of Diabolique - is the most obvious. Another of film's problems is in the script – Don McPherson has filled it with "clever" lines of dialogue that sound like they were invented by someone attending kindergarten. They sound even worse when delivered by Fiennes and Thurman, who lack any sort of chemistry and who approached this supposedly light-hearted film with solemnity and seriousness more suitable for Greek tragedies. Unlike them, Connery overacts and thus wastes one of his rare opportunities to play villain; role of de Wynter is arguably among the worst entries in his filmography. The only bright moments of this film appear when some of the film-makers' questionable creative choices receive a surreal quality of their own. Best example is meeting of villains being dressed as teddy bears. But those moments are too brief for the audience to endure a pointless hour and half of Hollywood lunacy.
RATING: 2/10 (-)
(Note: The text in its original form was posted in Usenet newsgroup rec.arts.films.reviews on June 9th 2004)
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