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Starring Uma Thurman, Ralph Fiennes, Sean Connery. Released to DVD on December 29, 1998. The one element of action/adventure films such as The Avengers that I just have never quite understood, is the decision of the screenwriter to include a filthy rich antagonist. From your pick of James Bond films to Kim Basinger's The Real McCoy and Don MacPherson's The Avengers, making the conscious choice to create a bad guy who lives in a 40 room castle with a topiary maze in his backyard does not sit well with me. What possible motivation do these characters have for being bad? Hell, if I was sitting on $200 million in assets, I'll tell you this, I wouldn't be thinking about pursuing any activities that could a) get me into a small jail cell with a large man named Leon who was interested in making me his 'friend', or b) worse yet, get me killed by top flight, British, secret agents.I wasn't very familiar with the '60's TV series that The Avengers was based on, it being broadcast in England some 10 years before I was born, and, having screened the film, am still not very clear about the nature of the characters and the organizations mentioned within. This much I do know: Ralph Fiennes and Uma Thurman star as John Steed and Mrs. (Dr.) Peel, although the presence of a Mr. Peel is not a given. Sean Connery is the aforementioned filthy rich, bad guy who is blackmailing a league of nations to give him 10% of their countries GNP's, or he will destroy them with inclement weather, which he has learned how to control. Fiennes and Thurman want to stop him. The physical production of this film was superb, shot on beautiful locations with most innovative set designs, but the action in The Avengers was nothing above tepid. Fiennes and Thurman never got particularly agitated or worried no matter what situations they faced, be it being chased by huge robotic bees or waking up in small padded cells in a straight jacket. BAD GUY: You're going to die, Steed! Mr. McFarland is going to scoop out your eyes with a rusty spoon and then we are going to pull out your toe nails with pliers, one by one. Finally we are going to saw off your legs and beat you to death with them. Hahahahahahaha... STEED: What a pity, I was rather hoping from crumpets. The dialogue between Fiennes and Thurman was equally poor and lifeless. Listening to the two speak, it almost seemed like I was listening to a strange code... a code I was never allowed in on. Director Jeremiah Chechik's misuse of Connery is entirely another matter though. Connery brings with him a sort of bad-assedly charm to his roles. The manner in which he cocks his head, or frowns at other actors has a way of transcending the normal level of superficiality that the film might have held. However, strangely, Chechik keeps Connery's presence on screen to a minimum. Action films don't work without the presence of an evil bad guy--something Connery himself should realize after years of playing the supposedly penultimate action hero, James Bond--and the producers of The Avengers just didn't seem that interested in spending the necessary amounts of time it would take to make Connery's character truly devilish, or spectacularly nasty. The extent of his badness comes when Connery kills two men dressed like the Grateful Dead dancing bears by throwing small knives at them, something that given the bears most annoying appearances, I may well have done. A sizable amount of money was spent on this film creating the supposedly seamless special effects and big explosions, but it is all for naught as the plotline of The Avengers is decidedly confusing and weak, and the wrath of Connery non-existent. Vacuuming behind the piano, regardless of whether you own a piano or not, takes precedence over watching this movie.
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