The Avengers

This is among the most panned movies of all time since it was based on a TV show. And while I can understand the fans of the original TV show I still don't think that this movie is THAT bad. I would NEVER put it in the Bottom 100 as I can name many other movies that are much worse than this one (FREDDY GOT FINGERED, THE CAT IN THE HAT and DISASTER MOVIE for example).

In this full length version of the 1960s TV show John Steele and Emma Peel battle with a duplicate Emma Peel and Sir August de Wynter (played by Sean Connery), a mastermind that wants to rule the world with his weather-controlling machine. And while this plot could look stupid to some, it certainly is! But you can't do anything but admire the extraordinary special effects as well the sets. In particular I loved the special effects (the CGI insects were cool to look at). I personally can't give a 1 to a movie with great special effects and sets, it deserves at least other 4 points for the effects.

As for the acting, even though the movie it's bland Ralph Fiennes and Uma Thurman are good in their roles. And it was a surprise for me seeing Sean Connery in such a nasty role and Patrick Mcnee as the Invisible Jones (a small role).

However, while the movie is a bit bad, it's watchable and far from a huge disappointment. But I am NOT saying it's great!

I am amazed at how well an American film has captured the matter-of-fact surrealism which the mathematician Dodgson(Lewis Carroll)gave to his dream-child, Alice, as also it recalls the more knowing, and oh-so-polite deconstruction wrought by the media-saavy British children of the 60's upon the distressed remnants of England's Imperial aplomb!

Of course, as Oscar Wilde may not have said, Satire revisited is only a lukewarm cup of tea. But then nostalgia - especially when the satire was so gentle anyway - has its own charms. And there was, anyway, a hefty dose of nostalgia amidst the cool insouciance of the original. Its very modernity was made to seem almost an expression of polite insistence on whatever surreal manifestation of tradition was encountered. It was the utterly unruffled mien of the original which prevailed over all lapses from reason and good taste. So, at its best, in the new cinema version.

This is indeed a brave try by Hollywood to draw us back into that black-and-white psychedelia of swinging sixties British commercial television. The sheer madness of the enterprise almost works - if the money-men hadn't had cold feet at the last minute, we might have been enjoying a really remarkable fantasy film. As it is, we must content ourselves with a merely very amusing piece of whimsy. Even through the plot-holes left by a nervous editor we can see some wonderfully mad logic at work: The Escher-inspired architecture of the baddy's stately home, in which Mrs Peel at one point loses her way, encapsulates this whole dream-trip of a movie.

And for those who don't 'get it', I can only say, Humour is like that: Very dependent on individual taste.

But even allowing for taste, it is a sad reflection on public taste that 'The Avengers' overwhelmingly offends filmgoers who are probably quite prepared to accept the ever more overblown superheroes of a more violent tradition, such as 'Batman' or 'The Hulk'. Of course, these two are clearly representative of that particularly adolescent taste for the extreme and crude for which the contemporary Hollywood production-line largely exists. (There is every sign that Eddie Izzard's character was originally intended to satirize mega-buck entertainment and mega-buck villains as being really just spoiled brats with their expensive toys.) The genteel quirks of the English-inspired concept of 'The Avengers' are - in their essence, and however silly - just too irritatingly grown-up for such hyperactive youth ever to endure sitting still for!

A pity the film was not left alone upon release to find its own friends - like a stray cat, that will carefully choose whom it will exercise it's feline charm upon. And what more feline than Uma Thurman in Mrs. Peel's cat-suit?!

This is certainly not the sort of film to toss into an auditorium full of baying first-run morons.

But I suspect that it is a film with more than one life ...

I wasn't all that interested in watching this movie, but I decided to anyway since it was one of the only ones that week there that I hadn't seen yet. I should've saw one of the others. I don't even remember what they are now, but it doesn't matter. I am pretty sure that THE AVENGERS is the worst movie of the decade and one of my least favorite movies of all time.

John Steed (Ralph Fiennes) and Emma Peel (Uma Thurman) team up to stop Sir August de Wynter (Sean Connery) from destroying the planet with a weather-changing machine. I won't go into the plot too deeply, because it's just plain stupid.

The acting in this movie was not very good. Ralph Fiennes and Fiona Shaw (Father) play two of the most annoying characters in any movies that I have ever seen. The constant unwitty one-liners between Fiennes and Thurman is very annoying. Sean Connery is at his worst here. I was disappointed in him, because he is a great actor who doesn't belong in this movie. Sir August de Wynter? Just the name of the character alone should tell you much.

There was, however, one thing that was good about this movie. That would be Uma Thurman in her tight leather. I am absolutely in love with Uma Thurman, and I don't think she belonged in this film, but I am pretty sure seeing her wearing those catsuits were the only thing that kept me from having to eat my own legs and drink my own urine to survive this movie.

Maybe you'll think I'm exaggerating a bit, but I found this movie to be boring and annoying. I recommend that it be avoided at all costs.

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")

Uma Thurman's catsuits aside, "The Avengers" is one of the flattest movies to come down the pike in a long time.

The failing Sean Connery isn't really the villain in this movie, the true villains are a director who thought he could "improve" on the original, and an editor who really shouldn't have been let out of film school.

Fiennes and Thurman do an adquate job with what they were given, which wasn't much, and then the editor took half of that away.

Connery got one half-choked off rant, (all of which you see in the trailer) and then hid in the leftover set for the power supply from the floating city in "The Empire Strikes Out" (Er -- "Back"). A pathetic effort from a formerly stellar actor.

Eileen Atkins was rather fun as Alice, Steed's minder, and the guest appearance by Patrick Macnee was somewhat amusing.

As for the writing, well.... I think (despite the credits) they actually gave the job to a couple of public school lads who rather thought that they were being clever.

Overall, not worth the money spent to make it, nor the $6 I paid to see it. One star, mostly for some rather nice, if somewhat generic, cinematography.