August 14, 1998 | Maybe you feared something dreadful was forthcoming when you heard that Warner Bros. would not preview The Avengers in time for opening-day reviews. If so, here’s more bad news: The movie, which landed with a loud, dull thud in thousands of theaters Friday, lives down to expectations.
Charmless, mirthless and stunningly ill-conceived, this big-screen version of the elegantly spoofy ’60s television show is as extravagant and useless as something you might purchase in an airport duty-free shop. Fans of the original series will be bitterly disappointed. And the uninitiated — that is, folks who know The Avengers only as the title of a comic book featuring Captain America — will wonder why anyone bothered to manufacture such a folly.
Working from a prosaic screenplay by Don Macpherson, director Jeremiah Chechik (Benny and Joon) (but, on the other hand, National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation) strives mightily to emulate the breezy sophistication of the cult-fave TV classic. To his credit, Chechik does get at least one thing right: the stark, stylized look of the conspicuously under-populated street scenes. (The original Avengers made a virtue out of necessity while filming on a cramped budget.) Unfortunately, he gets just about everything else, including the casting, wrong.
Ralph Fiennes replaces Patrick Macnee as John Steed, the well-bred and impeccably tailored British superspy, while Uma Thurman has the even more challenging task of filling in for Diana Rigg as Emma Peel, the leather-suited dilettante who speaks archly and carries a swift kick. In this revised version of the Avengers mythos, Mrs. Peel — as she is known to almost everyone, including Steed — is a doctor of meteorological science. But she’s also a formidable fencer and martial artist, which makes her a worthy ally for Steed, the very best operative of a British secret agency known as The Ministry.
The plot, which is at once simple-minded and hopelessly muddled, calls for Steed and Mrs. Peel to join forces against the maniacal Sir August De Wynter, a former Ministry official who has concocted a device to control the world’s weather. Sean Connery shares above-the-title billing with Fiennes and Thurman, but really doesn’t have much to do. Indeed, he spends most of his time grinning or grimacing in immense close-up, presumably while staring at something off-camera. Or, more likely, while thinking of the huge paycheck he received for what amounts to an extended cameo.
Even with an extended closing-credits crawl at the end, The Avengers clocks in at just under 90 minutes. Unfortunately, it seems twice as long. Instead of trying for the brisk jauntiness that made the TV series so much fun, Chechik inexplicably allows his movie to dawdle interminably. There is a weirdly dreamy quality to many scenes in which Fiennes and Thurman simply lounge about and murmur single entendres to each other. Quite often, the actors behave like participants in some artsy and overproduced commercial for expensive perfume.
There are some flashes of high-tech special effects, such as when Steed and Mrs. Peel are pursued by robotic wasps, and when Sir August demolishes various London landmarks with his lightning bolts and windstorms. All of this is nothing more than standard-issue action-movie spectacle, but at least it shakes the movie out its stupor now and then.
It helps very little that Fiennes moves like a prissy flamingo, and sounds like a smug twit. It helps even less that, when he’s supposed to be suave and self-assured, Fiennes is visibly uncomfortable in his Saville Row wardrobe. Thurman comes across as snippy and petulant rather than smart and mischievous, but at least she brings a bit of energy to her performance. She also looks great in a leather catsuit, which helps her generate what little sexual tension can be found here. Unfortunately, that obviously wasn’t enough for the filmmakers, who insist on having Steed and Mrs. Peel share a warm kiss after a close call. (Which, of course, will be viewed as nothing short of sacrilegious by dedicated fans of the TV series). Subtlety and understatement have no place in what is, ultimately, just another generic summer blockbuster.
It’s worth noting, by the way, that Patrick Macnee — yes, the original John Steed himself — makes a brief appearance in The Avengers. Or, to be more precise, he makes a brief non-appearance, as an invisible agent who runs the Ministry archives. You can hear his voice, but Macnee saves himself from the embarrassment of actually being seen in the movie. And, really, who can blame him?
