The Avengers (1998)

For all the hype it got I was expecting a lot more!

Absolutely the worst movie.

I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

It was OK. I don't see why everyone loves it so much. It wasn't very smart or deep or well-directed.

"The Avengers" is one of the biggest money-losers of the decade. I've read estimates that it lost $40,000,000...and with a film this clumsily and expensively made, I can certainly understand it. Initial previews went disastrously for the studio and they had the brilliant idea of trimming 26 minutes from the movie. Unfortunately, this made the film choppy and incomprehensible...and audience members stayed away in droves. So why did I decide to watch it? It was simply too infamously bad for me to resist it!The plot is a confusing mess involving a duplicate Emma Peel (Uma Thurman) and a guy who can apparently control the weather (Sean Connery). But the characterization of these and all the people seemed unimportant and everyone in the film lacks depth...and you have no idea WHY they do what they do. Instead the film focuses heavily on overly mannered dialog (to the point of being incredibly annoying), lots of expensive stunts (something never seen in the original TV show) and gadgets (such as giant robotic wasps, an invisible agent as well as a board meeting where EVERYONE is inexplicably dressed like the Grateful Dead bears...also the sorts of thing not seen in the TV show, thank God). Clearly, the folks who made the film had a severe lack of reverence for the source material...which would irritate the die-hard fans. And, the incomprehensibility and constant style over substance would certainly irritate all the rest of us! This is an expensive looking film which just doesn't make much sense, isn't entertaining and substitutes stunts and gadgets for plot. So, is it as bad as its reputation? Perhaps not...but dollar for dollar, you'd be very hard-pressed to find a film that delivers this little for the dollar! It's wastefully bad...and about as much fun as a case of the Shingles.

This big-budget flop is not without its good points, seeing as it contains enough offhand weirdness and odd situations to appeal to most bad movie fans. Although its about as far away from the original television series as you can get, there's this retro '60s thing going on with the film which makes it pretty amusing to watch. Although the fact that the cast members are obviously taking everything as a joke does get on your nerves after a while, I consider this to be an enjoyable failure and I must admit that I pretty much enjoyed some of the individual scenes.You know you're in for a crazy time with the film's opening, which sees Steed walking down an apparently normal English street only to be attacked by a number of surprise assailants. For example, at one moment a whistling milkman smashes two empty bottles together to use them as weapons as he lunges as Steed. This exceptionally odd beginning sets the campy tone for the rest of the film, which is not for all tastes it has to be said.Packed with cheesily overemphasised dialogue, lots of one-liners and innuendos worthy of a Bond movie, THE AVENGERS has the benefit of a huge budget to include lots of nifty (but hardly convincing) computer effects. These include an attack by a swarm of mechanical bees, characters walking in see-through bubbles and the climatic "storm within a building" scene which is sufficiently loud and over-the-top enough to be a crowd-pleasing event. Elsewhere, we have the ever-odd Eddie Izzard as a mute henchman, one of the least threatening ever to grace a cinema (or television) screen, and bad guys dressed up as giant multicoloured teddy bears in order to disguise their identities.Ralph Fiennes (looking a lot like a young version of Peter Cushing) essays the role of the straight-faced John Steed, and is pretty good; Uma Thurman plays the leather-suited Emma Peel: one wonders why she agreed to be in such a fantastic movie again after the failure of BATMAN & ROBIN but I guess she's a glutton for punishment. Sean Connery is the non-threatening chief villain, and has had enough experience with Bond villains in order to know how to play it, but his performance is somewhat weak. Elsewhere, we have Jim Broadbent as the wheelchair-bound Mother, leader of the agents, and a funny turn from Patrick Macnee as an invisible agent (!).The major problem is the obvious cutting that went on with the film after initial test screenings, which undoubtedly make events confusing at times. In my mind this just adds to the weirdness. See it for yourself to find out how.

In London, the agent of the Ministry John Steed (Ralph Fiennes) and Dr. Emma Peel (Uma Thurman) are summoned by the Mother (Jim Broadbent), who shows a footage where the Prospero Project that controls the weather is damaged by Dr. Peel. They head to meet Sir August de Wynter (Sean Connery), who is a weather specialist, but soon they discover that he wants to rule the world, using his machine that controls the weather. I saw "The Avengers" in the 90's and did not like this movie. Today I have just seen it again on DVD and I found again a silly and boring movie that wastes cast and budget. It is hard to believe that Sean Connery accepted to work in this turkey. My vote is three.Title (Brazil): "Os Vingadores" ("The Avengers")

In my point of view, I thought it was funny when needed,action-packed and had really good scripts, but I don't really see how people don't like this movie. I have watched it, and I kind of enjoyed watching it. Now all I wish (and I hope no one will judge) they could make a second movie because in my opinion...I LOVED IT! After seeing all of the negative reviews, I just want to say,its not all that bad. I don't really see the problem with this movie, so I am just going to say, maybe people don't like it because it's a little different to what we usually watch, but it kind of fits in with the Inspecter Gadget and those 90's Action-Hero type movies. I'm not tying to get at the people who don't like this film, but I am simply asking that you give in to it a bit more.