The Avengers (1998)

Sometimes - and usually against my better judgement - I revisit a movie that, when I first saw it, I thought was an irredeemable mess.  So, I recently sat down and rewatched, for probably the first time in twenty-plus years, The Avengers (1998), the largely forgotten and largely unlamented attempt to reboot the classic sixties TV series for the big screen. One of the reasons that the film has been largely forgotten is that, for decades, with Warner Brothers not releasing it in any form for home viewing for years and only a brief TV screening (on UK TV, at least), it simply vanished from sight.  Recently, however, The Avengers resurfaced for a couple of showings on ITV4.  Well, it hasn't improved with age.  Although, to highlight the positives, a second viewing did allow me the better appreciate the film's production design and cinematography, both of which are excellent.  The production design does its best to replicate something of the feel of the original, with its exterior shots of largely empty streets rendering the London background almost abstract and lots of sixties British motor cars, giving it all a timeless feeling.  Even the high tech hardware used by the villains to control the weather has a somewhat anachronistic, sixties, feel about it.  Arguably, though, this attempt to recreate the visuals of the TV series is also one of the film's problems, effectively denying it an identity of its own, instead giving it the feel of an embalmed relic.  

The film's real problems, though, lies elsewhere, namely with the script and the casting.  The former never seems sure of what it is trying to serve the audience - an episode of the TV series or something entirely new - let alone who that audience might be - fans of the original or new viewers to whom the TV show and its characters mean little or nothing.  Hence, it gives us a half-hearted 'origin' story for Steed and Mrs Peel, with the film purporting to chronicle their first meeting (something the TV show skipped over, with one series ending with Cathy Gale as his sidekick, the next opening with Mrs Peel, with no explanation offered as to the change).  Now, as I have ranted on about at length, I find Hollywood's burning need to provide 'origin stories' for well established TV show characters and scenarios the bane of my life - most fundamentally because they represent bad writing.  Audiences should be thrown in at the deep end and background details filtered through things like dialogue as necessary.  So it is with The Avengers, regardless of whether the viewers are established fans or new to the story, this 'origin story' is completely superfluous, slowing down the story and altering the dynamic of the Steed/Emma Peel relationship, which was central to a large part of the series' run.  The script also feels very shaky on what tone it should be aiming for, seemingly unsure as to whether it should play it for laughs, as some kind of parody, or present a more straightforward action orientated adventure.  The lightness of touch that the TV series had evolved by the time that Diana Rig joined the cast as Mrs Peel is entirely absent.

But, when all is said and done, the script could have been brilliant, but the final film, as presented for distribution, wouldn't have reflected it.  The Avengers suffered savage pre-release editing from the studio, cutting it down to just under ninety minutes from a reported director's cut of one hundred and fifteen minutes.  (Some reports also claim an initial hundred and forty minute cut, making the release version effectively an evisceration).   Consequently, the film, as available, feels completely disjointed, jumping between scenes and characters in a way that is often barely coherent.  Combined with an already confused script renders the film barely watchable as a narrative.  It looks as if most of the movie's middle section is missing, with a lengthy introduction crashing into a frenzied climax, skipping most of the plot and character development that you'd ordinarily expect.  On top of all of this is the problem of the casting.  Ralph Fiennes seems perpetually uncomfortable as John Steed, far too stiff and formal, entirely lacking Patrick MacNee's relaxed charisma.  (To be fair, though, Fiennes is still better casting that Mel Gibson, who previously had long been associated with the role).  Uma Thurman brings her icy beauty to the role of Emma Peel, but little else, again failing to deliver the sort of charismatic and seemingly effortless performance provided by Diana Rigg on TV.  Jim Broadbent fares better as 'Mother', capturing Patrick Newell's performance from the series,  Sean Connery seems to be having fun as the main villain, relishing his various Roger Moore-style double entendres and bringing some much needed flamboyance to proceedings although, overall, he feels underused.

Ultimately, my biggest problem with The Avengers is that it all too often feels like it is somebody who isn't that familiar with the original idea of what series was about.  It takes various ideas, characters and tropes from the TV show and rather randomly tries to mix and match them in the hope of creating some kind of rough facsimile.  In which respect it reminded rather of that equally unsuccessful recent movie version of Fantasy Island, which similarly plucked ideas and characters from the entire run of the TV series and tried to assemble them into an entirely unnecessary 'origin story'.  So, while a second viewing of The Avengers didn't make me re-evaluate the film and change my initial impressions of it, it did leave me feeling frustrated at what a missed opportunity it was.  With a better script and casting, it might have been a halfway decent re-imagining of the TV series for the late nineties, (not to mention becoming the start of a franchise, which was the producers' original plan, but the film's failure at the box office led to the cancellation of these plans).  Still, if you want to know what those fifteen minutes of missing footage contained, the film's novelisation was apparently based on the script used for the hundred and fifteen minuute version.  So, if you can find a copy, reading it might well make for a more satisfying experience than watching the film, as released by Warner Brothers.