The Avengers (1998, Ralph Fiennes, Uma Thurman, Sean Connery) – So Bad It’s Good Movie 7

Hopeless scripting, miscasting and post-production hacking afflict director Jeremiah S Chechik’s dismally daft 1998 TV spinoff movie starring Ralph Fiennes as British Ministry agent John Steed. He’s under direction from his boss Mother to investigates a diabolical plot by arch-villain Sir August de Wynter (Sean Connery) to rule the world with his weather control machine.

Steed investigates the sole suspect, beautiful doctor Mrs Emma Peel (Uma Thurman), but falls for her and the duo eventually join forces to battle Sir August.

Chechik says: ‘Artistically, it was a great opportunity. I really wanted to respect the iconic, ironic weird sensitivity which is so much of what The Avengers is. I felt the script really achieved it.’ But everything that could go wrong has gone wrong in this train wreck of a movie. The mad-as-a-box-of-monkeys plot, as you see, is ridiculous and pathetic, absolutely no fun at all as a sci-fi action adventure movie caper.

It’s all meant to be arch and camp but none of the actors has any sense of this, taking themselves and the film far too seriously. These are not fun people, just good actors wasting their time and ours. But then they got paid for it. Somehow, $60million has been chucked away on this movie.

Though they carry on professionally, and indeed regardless, Fiennes and Thurman are not in the same class or even cosmos as Patrick Macnee and Diana Rigg. Fiennes should have been ideal casting as the screen Steed on paper, but he isn’t really any good. Uniquely for this distinguished actor, he lacks authority here. The lines dry on his lips and the part just dies there on screen.

A wilfully miscast Thurman was always going to be in trouble with Peel unfortunately. Thurman’s vocal delivery is weird but in no way wonderful. Chechik says: ‘Uma was perfectly nice and charming and talented. But ultimately, her chemistry with Ralph was not there, I felt, at the end of the day. I felt there was something amiss. But that didn’t really affect the shoot.’

Connery looks embarrassed and mumbles away in Scottish like he’s reading his gas bill. But they’re nothing like bad compared with Eddie Izzard as Bailey, whose only saving grace is that he doesn’t say anything. Was his speaking role cut out, or is this supposed to be the joke? Either way, it doesn’t matter, he’s terrible.

It’s not Jim Broadbent’s finest hour as spy boss Mother, either, and Fiona Shaw is splendidly awful as Father.

The Avengers could only have worked as an outright comedy. So, all these years later, let’s have a good old laugh at its expense. It’s the only way to go.

Macnee voices Invisible Jones. Of course they should have hired him as Steed.

The studio greenlit the film largely on the strength of a starry cast and Jeremiah Chechik’s work on Diabolique (1996) and hated the original cut. The first screening took place in front of a largely Mexican, working-class audience in Phoenix, Arizona, who hated the film and thought it was too British. The studio then forced Chechik to cut many of his favourite scenes and conduct reshoots. The final cut went from 115 to 89 minutes and is incoherent. The studio refused to hold further test screenings or to have an official premiere before the film’s August 1998 release. It wasn’t press screened in the UK.

Chechik says: ‘I cast Sean Connery and that was a lot of fun to do. He was great. He loved the shoot. It was one of the most joyful shoots ever. We had so much fun. Post-production was very, very difficult but the production itself was a joy. The failure of that movie changed my life. This movie was not a job for me. This movie was something that I was very, very passionate about. I gave it all.

‘If you look at the movie without the sound, oddly enough, you’ll see the visual sensibility of it, that is really rock solid. And if you look at the credits, you’ll see who I’m working with. Some of the UK’s finest, finest editors, cameramen, art directors, everything. An amazing experience. And so it really broke my heart.’

The Avengers (1998) deservedly won the 1999 Razzie for Worst Remake or Sequel, tied with Godzilla (1998) and Psycho (1998).

(C) Derek Winnert 2013 So Bad It’s Good Movie 7  derekwinnert.com