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Could it be a scam to claim a business loss? Like the one perpetrated by Max Bialystok (Zero Mostel) in The Producers? In that classic farce, the sham backfired because Springtime For Hitler was so bad it was good. But there'll be no such luck for The Avengers.
Truth be told, everything goes wrong in director Jeremiah Chechik's big screen version of the 1960s TV show, from concept and direction to screenplay and acting. The special effects are tatty. Even the audio sounds muffled and cheap. It's a good thing Smell-O-Vision was never perfected.
Die-hard fans may be pleased, but only in the very barest sense, and then solely by the film's nostalgia quotient. On a purely stand-alone basis, this discombobulated curiosity has no raison d'être. Casual walk-ins with no fealty to dapper secret agent John Steed (Ralph Fiennes) or his modishly alluring partner in buttoned-down heroics, Dr. Emma Peel (Uma Thurman), will either fall asleep or walk right out.
What is perhaps most amazing is Sean Connery's constrained performance as the megalomaniac villain, Sir August de Wynter. Determined to control the weather, this bad guy is to meteorology what Auric Goldfinger was to gold. Telling of his aspirations, he exuberantly announces: "Rain or shine, it's all mine." Worse, whilst blackmailing an assemblage of world leaders, he warns: "Gentlemen, this is the winter of your discontent." It really takes some doing to make a movie so artistically inhospitable; even someone of the calibre of Sean Connery can't find a comfortable groove to glow in.
Yet in all fairness, part of the problem is the project itself - which was perhaps doomed from the start. The original was a savvy and glib Brit import starring Patrick Macnee and Diana Rigg in the principal roles. The repartee was witty and the genial send-up of things James Bond was quite cutting edge - tres, tres outré for the times. Translating that righteous flippancy across medium as well as time poses a challenge this production just can't meet.
Whereas a good-natured satire of The Brady Bunch sitcom works because it is generally agreed that the sociology perpetrated therein invites (and deserves) ridicule, fans of The Avengers doubtless would like to re-experience the enlightened notions the series once disseminated. Alas, they may be at a loss. For that was television, way back when. Violence and gunplay were minimal. Steed suavely outsmarted people and pretty much tripped them up with his bumpershoot. And hardly a discouraging (or dirty) word was uttered. Today, you're lucky if you see anything fitting that description on early Saturday morning TV.
Uncertain how to tackle this cinematic conundrum, director Chechik working from a screenplay that seems like it was written by someone with a debilitating head cold, opts to keep it squeaky clean..... but sterile is more like it. Though he gets a PG rating, it is painfully earned.
Whatever plague afflicts the writer and director quickly spreads to the lead actors. Witness Ralph Fiennes (Schindler's List, The English Patient). Attempting the punctilious, tea-drinking Steed, Mr. Fiennes ceremoniously adorned in bowler hat is less than awe-inspiring. He looks more like a cross between Mary Poppins' younger brother and Stan Laurel than the supposed grand wielder of London's meanest umbrella.
But it is outright strange how Uma Thurman (Pulp Fiction) succumbs to the film's virus of mediocrity. Usually a shade or two off the beaten path to begin with, casting her as the attractively outrageous Dr. Emma Peel seemed a stroke of genius. But that thought is short-lived. Her portrayal is frightfully run-of-the mill, wild leather costumes notwithstanding. Needless to note, she and Fiennes hardly ever achieve the sort of spark necessary for acceptable levels of that quality important to both adventure movies and Presidencies - sexual tension.
Observing these terribly dull doings, it becomes obvious that the real story isn't up on the screen, but somewhere behind the scenes. So a healthy curiosity sent your humble auditor to the Internet in search of answers. One web site following the progress of the movie during production told of an eleventh hour switch in directors. Maybe there was more to this saga of motion picture dysfunction. Attempting to reach The Avengers' official web site, the screen turns ominously grey and then bemoans: "An error has occurred in the script on this page. This script operation has been cancelled. Object doesn't support this property or method." Huh? You mean even its web site doesn't work? Can a movie just be cursed?
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