The Avengers (1998)

By Greg
Score 3/10

With Marvel's The Avengers in theaters currently and dominating with the brilliance of Joss Whedon at the helm. I felt like I should visit another The Avengers. The remake of the popular 60's television show with the same name.

When British intelligence agent John Steed (Ralph Fiennes) investigates a murder and Dr. Emma Peel (Uma Thurman) is a suspect and wanting to defend her innocence. The two join forces as The Avengers and seek out to bring down the recent threat of world domination from a weather producing machine created by Sir August de Wynter (Sean Connery, I know, why Sean, WHY?). That there is enough to figure out the movie, with the assistance of the trailer, which gives a lot of the visual eye candy. A well versed film-goer knows how this will all play out. Good v. evil, spy v. world dominator (i.e. any of James Bonds 25 films) it doesn't lack imagination, just originality.

It is a remake, which isn't always bad, but the chemistry wasn't there. Sean Connery is a cinematic legend of being a good guy, the hero. This film depicts him as, well, stupid and cheesy. Which also applies to the film on the whole, cheesy. Cliched one liners, over dramatic acting, the actors tried, director tried, just wasn't enough. Loads of cinematic eye candy, but it too falls flat. The only way I see how this happened was, studio had this brilliant idea for a remake, had the money, latest cutting edge technology and people were just left to make scenes, but no a cohesive film.

Jump 14 years into the future, Joss Whedon's brilliance, with the help of an army. Created a cinematic masterpiece that was 50 years in the making, Marvel's The Avengers. Tackling characters that also were legends in the 60's, except even though the idea wasn't original, watching the film is satisfying from start to finish. The Avengers (1998) not really satisfying at all, except just to see Sir Sean Connery on the screen, even though it was a crappy role, he still shined.

Starring: Ralph Fiennes, Uma Thurman and Sean Connery
Directed by: Jeremiah S. Chechik
Budget/Gross: $60,000,000 (estimated)/$23,322,832 (USA)
IMDB Rating: 3.5/10
Tomatometer: 14% critics and 18% audience liked it