The Avengers (1998)

Something was going through Hollywood in the late 1990s and early 2000s.  The producers in the major Hollywood studios wanted to bring old television shows to the big screen with large budgets.  In the 2000s, it was the crime shows.  Things like SWAT and Starsky and Hutch were hitting cinemas.  In the 1990s, however, it was the spy-based television shows finding a new life in theaters.  Movies like Mission: Impossible were being watched by audiences all around the world.  But there were a few that didn’t have as much acclaim.

The Avengers was a 1998 movie based on the British espionage show of the 1960s.  John Steed (Ralph Fiennes) was a British special agent who had to team up with Emma Peel (Uma Thurman) to try and solve a mystery involving an Emma Peel lookalike.  Along the way, they went up against Sir August de Wynter (Sean Connery), a scientist bent on controlling the weather to take over the world.  Would the unlikely pair of Steed and Peel be able to stop de Wynter from holding the world hostage with his weather machine?

There can be no argument about the quality of The Avengers.  It was not a good movie.  The story made little to no sense.  The chemistry wasn’t apparent.  Everything was boring even when it wasn’t supposed to be.  There was one good section of the movie, and that was because of the ridiculous visuals that stood out among the dull, uninspired remainder of the runtime.  It felt like The Avengers was an unintentional parody of the television show and itself, which could have worked if they played into it.  They didn’t, though.  It was never their intention.  As such, it fell flat.

The story of The Avengers was a mess, and there’s a reason for that.  The version that was released to theaters was not the intended version of the film.  When it was originally cut, it was 115 minutes long.  The studio test screened it in Arizona.  The audience was negative on the movie, and producers forced director Jeremiah Chechik to cut many of the scenes.  That brought the runtime to under an hour and a half.  It also removed many of the transitional scenes that could have supported the story and helped the movie make sense.  The cuts ruined any sense within the story, leaving The Avengers without any real thread to follow.  The basic idea of defeating the weather machine villain was there, but it was hard to tell how characters got to places or why they were doing what they were doing at that point.

Having the story make sense might not have helped with the chemistry, though.  Ralph Fiennes and Uma Thurman were not a good romantic pair.  There may have been a few reasons for that, but it seemed to all come down to their performances seeming empty.  Uma Thurman was playing two roles.  One of them was Emma Peel, who always felt distanced from what was going on, even when she was in the midst of the action.  She was also playing the evil Emma Peel, and didn’t really bring much to the performance outside of an “evil” look, and darker makeup and wardrobe than her counterpart.  Ralph Fiennes sure looked the part, and with a better partner in the role of Emma Peel, probably could have been a much stronger lead.  Their rapport never felt believable, and the romantic payoff was unearned because of it.

The lack of chemistry made things boring, but it wasn’t the only way that boredom came through The Avengers.  One notable aspect about when the main characters were driving from one place to another was that the roads were always empty, unless there was a direct interaction with the characters.  If they were on a country road, there were no other cars or people.  If they were on the city streets, there were no other cars or people.  The world around John Steed and Emma Peel was empty as long as they were driving.  With no background, there was no world that the audience could try and submerge themselves into.  There was nothing to make the world of The Avengers feel lived in.  It was an empty world that the characters just happened to have a story in.  It’s like when the bare bones of a story are put to the page but no subsequent rewrites are done, so the world hasn’t been built out.  There’s a sense of emptiness that can only detach audiences from what is happening.

All these negatives (confusing story, lack of chemistry, no background world) aside, there was one good thing about The Avengers that almost made it worth watching.  It’s not worth watching.  Don’t think that this is a must-see movie.  But there was one thing in it that felt like it could have been saved for a better movie.  About halfway through the movie, when John Steed and Emma Peel were investigating August de Wynter, there was a boardroom meeting going on.  Everyone at the board meeting for de Wynter’s evil empire was dressed in a giant, brightly-coloured teddy bear mascot suit.  Were the movie meant to be a parody of the spy shows from the 1960s, using one of the more popular spy properties from that era, this would have been the perfect setpiece.  As it was, however, it didn’t seem to fit with the rest of the movie.

The Avengers was a movie that had all the makings of something great.  The cast included people who typically had charisma and fun to go around.  Ralph Fiennes, Uma Thurman, Sean Connery, and Eddie Izzard usually bring entertainment to the screen.  Something was missing within that combination, however and it brought things down.  It could have been that the story didn’t do them any favours.  It could have been their chemistry.  Or it could have been that they were some of the only people within the world of The Avengers.  Whatever the case, they made a bad movie.

These notes won’t be as bad:

• The Avengers was suggested by @TheChewDefense, who previously suggested Howard the Duck (week 75), Tracers (week 133), Outcast (week 163), Gigli (week 225), and God’s Not Dead (week 230).
• Uma Thurman became a Sunday “Bad” Movies four-timer with The Avengers.  Her other three appearances were Playing for Keeps (week 21), Batman & Robin (week 138), and Movie 43 (week 243).
• The Avengers featured Carmen Ejogo, who was also in Alex Cross (week 12).
• Nadim Sawalha returned to the Sunday “Bad” Movies with The Avengers, after showing up in Ishtar (week 192).
• Finally, Fiona Shaw was in The Avengers.  She first popped up in the Sunday “Bad” Movies in Super Mario Bros. (week 248).
• Have you seen The Avengers?  The 1998 one, I mean.  What were your thoughts?  Should it have leaned more into parody, or should it have gone dark and gritty?  Do you hate when people describe movies as gritty?  Share your thoughts in the comments section.
• I’m always keeping an eye open for movies that I might not otherwise know.  If you have one that you want to bring to my attention because I should be checking it out for the Sunday “Bad” Movies, put it in the comments or find me on Twitter.
• If you want to add me on Snapchat (jurassicgriffin), go right ahead.  I sometimes share clips of the bad movies I watch.  You might find those entertaining.
• The movie being covered with next week’s post might not be one that you recognize.  It’s still important to the Sunday “Bad” Movies.  EZ Money is another in the line of Dan T. Hall movies that I’ve been checking out since the beginning of the blog.  So, I’ll see you next Sunday for another children’s movie that he directed.