The Avengers (1998 film)

For other things named The Avengers, see The Avengers.

The Avengers
File:TheAvengers.jpg
Directed by	Jeremiah S. Chechik
Written by	Sydney Newman (television series) Don MacPherson (written by)
Produced by	Jerry Weintraub
Starring	Ralph Fiennes Uma Thurman Sean Connery Patrick Macnee Jim Broadbent Fiona Shaw Eddie Izzard
Cinematography	Roger Pratt
Edited by	Mick Audsley
Music by	Joel McNeely
Distributed by	Warner Bros.
Release date	August 14, 1998
Running time	89 min.
Language	English
Budget	$60,000,000 (estimated)
Box office	$23,322,832 (USA)

The Avengers is a 1998 American film adaptation of the British television series of the same name from the 1960s.

The film was directed by Jeremiah Chechik. It stars Ralph Fiennes and Uma Thurman as secret agents John Steed and Emma Peel, and Sean Connery as Sir August de Wynter, a mad scientist bent on controlling the world's weather and blackmailing various governments for sun or rain. Patrick Macnee, the John Steed of the original series, makes a pseudo-cameo as the voice of Invisible Jones. Despite the bad reviews. The movie did receive a cult following.

Plot

The film opens with John Steed, agent of The Ministry, in a training course, which he finishes successfully. Next, we see Mrs Emma Peel at home, where she receives a phone call telling her to go to a gentlemen's club - no women allowed - where she meets Steed for the first time. The two head off to the Ministry to meet Mother, who informs them that the Prospero project - an attempt to influence the weather - was sabotaged by... Emma Peel. Mrs Peel claims she is innocent, but she is sent to work alongside Steed to find the real culprit. Mother's off-sider, Father, claims Mrs Peel suffers from a mental disease. They go off to visit Sir August De Wynter, an old ally of The Ministry. He takes an instant liking to Mrs Peel, as they both share a love of weather.

Steed and Emma follow a lead to Wonderland Weather - a business that artificially creates heat where there is cold and rain where it is hot with a special machine - where they discover a dead man in a teddy bear suit. The members of a secret organisation—led by De Wynter—all wear teddy bear suits to disguise their identities. One of them, however, is a double of Emma Peel. Steed arrives in time to save Mrs Peel, as the double jumps off a roof, but disappears. Steed and Emma go off to visit De Wynter at his mansion - but are attacked by mechanical bees. They manage to flee, helped out by Alice, a Ministry agent. Emma is captured by De Wynter, and tries to escape, but finds herself perplexed by the mansion's ever-changing floor plan. She smashes her way through a window, and Steed rescues her. Back at Steed's apartment, however, Mrs Peel is arrested by Father, as Steed visits Invisible Jones, a man inside The Ministry, to investigate the meaning of a map Steed found at Wonderland Weather. Steed determines Father is working with De Wynter after viewing some photos of failed genetic experiments. Father and the Mrs Peel double (from here called Evil Peel) capture Mrs Peel, but are confronted by Mother, who is incapacitated. De Wynter - controlling Prospero and the weather - confronts the world's leaders, boasting that 'weather is not in God's hands, but in mine' and they will buy the weather from him, they will pay a lot for it, and they have got until midnight to pay up.

Father and Evil Peel take Emma to a hot air balloon, where Emma escapes during a snowstorm. Father and Evil Peel perish in an explosion. Invisible Jones determines De Wynter is using the Prospero instruments on a secret island. Emma and Steed arrive at the island. Emma defuses the Prospero device just as a hurricane forms over London. Steed duels De Wynter, and impales him. Emma and Steed escape just as the base self-destructs, and share champagne on the roof of a building with Mother.

Cast

Actor	Role	Description
Ralph Fiennes	John Steed	Ministry agent
Uma Thurman	Emma Peel	Scientist, Ministry agent
Jim Broadbent	Mother	Director of the Ministry
Sean Connery	Sir August De Wynter	Main Villain
Fiona Shaw	Father	Deputy Director of the Ministry, ally of Sir August
Eddie Izzard	Bailey	Sir August's henchman
Eileen Atkins	Alice	Ministry Agent
Carmen Ejogo	Brenda	Ministry Agent, Mother's aide
John Wood	Trubshaw	Steed's tailor
Keeley Hawes	Tamara	Agent of Sir August
Patrick Macnee (voice)	Invisible Jones	Ministry Agent

Reception

Release

Warner Bros., the film's distributor, refused to allow any early press-screenings for movie reviewers that most releases use to generate interest; such a decision is often made when a studio and/or distributor knows a film is terrible and pre-release reviews would only be negative. The film was originally scheduled to open earlier in the summer, June 1998, but was pushed back until August; often referred to as the late-summer "dumping ground" for films that are not felt to be strong or worthy enough to open on the more lucrative holiday weekends in early summer. The film was a notable failure at the box office, grossing a weak $23 million over a budget of $60 million.

Critical response

The film was given almost universally bad reviews. The review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reported that 15% of critics gave the film positive reviews, based on 40 reviews. Metacritic reported the film had an average score of 12 out of 100, based on 19 reviews. The purists disliked it for its disrespect to the original series (particularly the introduction of a romance between Steed and Peel; a carefully ambiguous subject in the series), and the newcomers were lost by all of the attempts to capture the mood of the original. Rod Dreher in the New York Post called the film "a big fat gob of maximum crapulosity, the kind of shallow, stupid, big-budget cowpile that smells of Joel Schumacher".

Further adding to the confusion, after test screenings, the 150-minute film was cut to 89 minutes, sacrificing much coherence and continuity in the process. The New York Times's Janet Maslin noted "At a pared-down, barely rational 100 minutes, "The Avengers" is short but not short enough."

From the Radio Times film review section when the film has been shown on terrestrial British television: "The cult 1960s TV series gets royally shafted by Hollywood in this stunningly designed blockbuster that's stunningly awful in every other department. Ralph Fiennes and Uma Thurman couldn't be more miscast as John Steed and Emma Peel, here trying to stop villainous Sir August De Wynter (Sean Connery playing himself again) holding the world's weather to ransom and freezing London to an Arctic standstill. Ruthlessly edited before release and packed with arch one-liners, bad puns and vulgar double entendres, this is misguided and misbegotten to a simply staggering degree, while Jeremiah Chechik's mannered direction screeches the action to an unexciting halt at every flat turn. Terrible special effects and zero chemistry between Fiennes and Thurman make this notorious disaster a total waste of everyone's time and energy." (RT reviewer Alan Jones.)

Awards

The film was multiple nominee at the 19th Golden Raspberry Awards, earning nine nominations and winning only one trophy, Worst Remake or Sequel.

• Worst Picture
• Worst Director - Jeremiah S. Chechik
• Worst Actor - Ralph Fiennes
• Worst Actress - Uma Thurman
• Worst Supporting Actor - Sean Connery
• Worst Screenplay
• Worst Remake or Sequel - Winner (tied with Godzilla and Psycho)
• Worst Screen Couple - Ralph Fiennes and Uma Thurman
• Worst Original Song - "Storm"

External links

• The Avengers (Official Site)
• The Avengers Movie (Fansite)
• The Avengers at IMDb
• ‹The template AllMovie title is being considered for deletion.› The Avengers at AllMovie
• The Avengers at Rotten Tomatoes
• The Avengers at Metacritic
• The Avengers at Box Office Mojo