The Avengers (1998 film)

This article is about the 1998 film. For other films with the same title, see The Avengers (disambiguation).

The Avengers
Theatrical poster
Directed by	Jeremiah S. Chechik
Produced by	Jerry Weintraub
Written by	Don Macpherson
Based on	TV Series  by Sydney Newman
Starring	Ralph Fiennes Uma Thurman Sean Connery Jim Broadbent Fiona Shaw Eddie Izzard
Music by	Joel McNeely
Cinematography	Roger Pratt
Editing by	Mick Audsley
Studio	JW Productions
Distributed by	Warner Bros. Pictures
Release date(s)	August 14, 1998 (1998-08-14)
Running time	87 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$60 million
Box office	$48,585,416

The Avengers is a 1998 American action spy 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, who played John Steed on the original series, makes a vocal cameo as the voice of Invisible Jones.

Plot

The film opens with John Steed (Ralph Fiennes), agent of The Ministry, in a training course, which he finishes successfully. Next, we see Dr. Emma Peel (Uma Thurman) 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 (Jim Broadbent), who informs them that the Prospero project - an attempt to influence the weather - was sabotaged apparently 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 (Fiona Shaw), claims Mrs Peel suffers from a mental disease. They go off to visit Sir August De Wynter (Sean Connery), 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 or rain with a special machine - where they discover two dead men in teddy bear suits. 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 clone 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 (Eileen Atkins), 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 (Patrick MacNee), 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's clone 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 he controls the weather and they will buy the weather from him, they will pay a lot for it, and they have until midnight to pay.

Father and Mrs. Peel's clone take Emma to a hot air balloon, where Emma escapes during a snowstorm. Father and the clone 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
Lorraine Mcbride	Nun	Opening sequence

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 will not be received well 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 only $48 million worldwide, compared to its budget of $60 million. Mick LaSalle, of the San Francisco Chronicle, warned against poor editing and direction, explaining,

There's.......some business involving a dead ringer for Emma going around causing trouble, and there's some mention of the word "cloning." Then all talk of that is dropped. Everything is dropped. After a slow opening, the 90-minute movie jolts into climax mode. What happened to the middle? Clearly, this wasn't just edited but gutted. No doubt they did us all a favor, but it doesn't help. Instead of just being a bad picture, the missing middle makes The Avengers a bad and weird and strangely off picture. One example: There's never a moment when Emma and Steed realize who the villain is. At first, they don't know. Next they're in a titanic battle to the death. At one point Emma is shackled and floating around in a hot-air balloon. I don't know how she got there. I must have blinked.

Most damaging was the decision by Warners to vastly cut down the running time at the last moment, removing key scenes including the base attack glimpsed in early trailers (Mrs. Peel enters via a phone box, saying the words "How now brown cow" to gain admittance). The original shooting script was used for the film's novelisation and reveals all the material shot and then bizarrely removed from the film. The original cut has yet to surface.

Critical response

The film was panned by critics. The review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reported that 16% of critics gave the film positive reviews, based on 44 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 misfired 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", referencing the previous summer's likewise poorly-received Batman & Robin, which also starred Uma Thurman.

The Avengers was nominated for that year's Razzie Award for Worst Picture, Worst Director, Worst Screenplay, Worst Supporting Actor (Sean Connery), Worst Actress (Uma Thurman), Worst Actor (Ralph Fiennes), Worst Screen Couple (Fiennes and Thurman), and Worst Original Song ("Storm"), winning only one trophy for Worst Remake or Sequel. Several critics, especially in the UK, noted that the American production team fatally misunderstood the symbols of 'Britishness' central to The Avengers series, such as the inclusion of an inexplicable gadget on the dashboard of Steed's Bentley which appeared to dispense tea, with milk already added.

Further adding to the confusion, after test screenings, the 115-minute film was cut to 87 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."

Awards

Award	Category	Nominee	Result
Razzie Award	Worst Picture	Jerry Weintraub	Nominated
	Worst Director	Jeremiah S. Chechik	Nominated
	Worst Screenplay	Don Macpherson	Nominated
	Worst Actor	Ralph Fiennes	Nominated
	Worst Screen Couple		Nominated
		Uma Thurman	Nominated
	Worst Actress		Nominated
	Worst Supporting Actor	Sean Connery	Nominated
	Worst Original Song	Storm	Nominated
	Worst Remake or Sequel	Jerry Weintraub	Won
Stinkers Bad Movie Awards	Worst Picture		Nominated
	Worst Director	Jeremiah S. Chechik	Won
	Worst Actor	Ralph Fiennes	Nominated
	Worst On-Screen Couple		Nominated
		Uma Thurman	Nominated
	Worst Actress		Nominated
	Most Annoying Fake Accent		Nominated
	Worst Supporting Actor	Sean Connery	Nominated
	Worst Resurrection of a TV Show	Jerry Weintraub	Won

External links

• The Avengers (Official Site)
• The Avengers Movie (Fansite)
• The Avengers at the Internet Movie Database
• The Avengers at AllRovi
• The Avengers at Rotten Tomatoes
• The Avengers at Metacritic
• The Avengers at Box Office Mojo