The Avengers - The 90's mightiest heroes

I guess there are two ways of looking at 1998's 'The Avengers' film (and, yes, it has NOTHING to do with the Marvel brand that would dominate the Box Office a decade later).  You can either believe everything you've heard about it, or just keep an open mind and go with the flow.

It's a remake of a British 1960s spy show about a male and female secret agent, generally saving the world with gadgets and an assortment of witty quips.  The studio had high hopes for the big budget adaptation and cast two major stars (Ralph Fiennes and Uma Thurman) in the lead.  However, close to release it became clear (from 'critics,' anyway) that the movie wasn't that good and its release date got put forward while they did reshoots, or re-edits etc, trimming the run-time dramatically.  When it did hit theatres, basically everyone hated it, claiming it was a 'mess' and it now lives on only in top ten lists of movies that bombed hard.

Yet, saying all that, I quite enjoyed it.  I enjoyed it then and I enjoy watching it on DVD every so often.  No, I'm not saying it's perfect (or even that good!), but I'm saying there's enough there to keep me entertained for an hour and a half.

For a start there's Sean Connery as the bad guy, who's threatening to control the world's weather and force countries to 'purchase' their weather directly from him.  Therefore, Fiennes and Thurman must stop him.  Yes, it's kind of like a Bond film plot and you can expect the regular punch-ups and car chases that come with the genre.

What you also get are some truly surreal scenes which don't make a lot of sense.  Now, these could be written just to add to the film's 'kooky' feel, or it could be because the other scenes that explain them were left on the cutting room floor, therefore leaving these scenes' meaning up to our imagination.

People also remarked on 'how little chemistry' there was between Fiennes and Thurman.  I can see their point.  However, it's worth noting that they were supposed to be playing cold and unflappable characters lifted from yesteryear when this kind of acting/social interaction was more common.  It's a case where the film tried to copy the source material and succeeded - only a little too well for its own good.

Like I say, 'The Avengers' is just about as far from perfect as you'll ever get, but it's not the car crash you've probably heard it is.  And, if you're in the mood for a spy movie that's a little bit different and has a mute Eddie Izzard, a gun-totting Granny and a swarm of robot bees, then give this one a go.  And I didn't even mentioned the giant teddy bear costumes.

7/10 if I woke up on Groundhog Day and had to watch this again, I could live with that