Mutant Reviewers from Hell do
"A man with an umbrella is a man praying for rain."

[year/rating] 1998 PG-13 [genre] Spy Adventure [director] Jeremiah S. Chechik [starring] Ralph Fiennes Uma Thurman Sean Connery Jim Broadbent

Tagline

Saving the World in Style

Summary Capsule

Two of England's quirkiest agents attempt to stop a madman from controlling the weather.

Mutant Meter

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Check out this movie in VHS or DVD, and the soundtrack CD

Kyle's Rating: Sign #3 that the end times are upon us.
Kyle's Review: My friend Cece, who could be dead now but it doesn’t really matter, has/had a thing for Uma Thurman. And fencing. Weird, eh? Anyhoo, it was a cool and crisp Tuesday morning a few years back and I had just gotten out of Cultural Anthropology at my old college in Colorado. Cece was working at the information desk in the student center and, after exchanging pleasantries, I asked him “How’s Trix?” Meaning the tasty cereal. He misunderstood, because he simply stated “This Friday is Movie Night!” I became visibly excited, flapping and waving my arms, because Movie Night was when a bunch of us college boys and girls got together, went out to dinner, saw a new movie, then went to Starbucks to dissect the movie, the previews, the soundtrack, and the latest college fashions. Very bohemian. Having that to look forward to was enough to get my arms flapping and waving (did I already mention that?). Then I asked the most important question of all. “Where are we going to eat?” “Red Robin.” Hamburgers!?! Yes! Nothing’s gonna stop us now! “Yeah,” Cece explained, “I figured we’d all go see The Avengers.”

"My hands, twisted by malevolence into claws and fueled by my hate, whipped out to tear through Cece’s Gap shirt and rip his chest into bacon-looking strips of skin."

Suddenly local time flow went from “big wheel keep on turning” to “super-duper angry slow-mo.” My arms fell limp at their sides and I gave Cece a look of pure hatred that paralleled Arnold Schwarzenegger’s glare at Bill Paxton in the middle of True Lies. My anguished cry of “No!” echoed through the main hallway and could be heard as far away as the chemistry labs. My hands, twisted by malevolence into claws and fueled by my hate, whipped out to tear through Cece’s Gap shirt and rip his chest into bacon-looking strips of skin. Needless to say, I was not pleased at his choice of films.

Why was I so angry? Why did Cece like fencing? Why am I super-exaggerating everything for literary value? All valid questions. I can only answer one: I had heard many many bad things about The Avengers. I had seen a few amusing past episodes, and I knew the “real” Avengers (Diana Rigg and Patrick Macnee) from their appearances in the James Bond films On Her Majesty’s Secret Service and A View to a Kill, respectively. In fact, Rigg’s role in the underrated OHMSS was so great and touching that I cry every time I watch it! Just wanted to let you know!

Anyway, I would not pay ticket prices, even at a student discount, to see The Avengers if it was crap that disrespected the fine show it was based on! Even Cece’s suggestion that I use Bondian methods to sneak into the showing was rebuffed, because I don’t sneak into bad movies! Only porn! Since a bunch of us felt the same way we all went to Red Robin for tasty hamburgers and then after dinner we split up into Cece’s group of “let’s go see The Avengers!” guys and my group of “let’s go to my house and play erotic hide and seek!” girls. So it would be a few years till I finally decided to give a cable viewing of The Avengers a chance, in memory of my friend Cece who did like fencing and other fruity things but was still a good friend.

Sadly, The Avengers movie is just as bad on the small screen as Cece admitted it was on the big screen. Ralph Fiennes and Uma do manage to be as charming as British people can ever hope to be, but any hope of living up to the high standard of Bond is dashed soundly rather quickly. Sean Connery (Bond!) overacts disturbing and gets to be crazy and evil, which he probably all learned from Donald Pleasence’s portrayal of Blofeld in You Only Live Twice. If you enjoy off-the-wall goofy weirdness you might get a kick out of this, but I can’t really recommend it to anyone except people who have viewed every single other video at their local video store and must see another movie in the next week or they will explode. If that doesn’t cover you, just rent a Bond flick instead! Bond forever!

PoolMan's Rating: A first step to understanding Hudson Hawk.
PoolMan's Review: The first Mutant Summit was memorable for a lot of reasons. Endless trips to Denny's. Driving around one night for a solid TWO HOURS without being able to find any bar other than the one we had breakfast in that morning. Justin's mannequin surprising the bejeezus out of me. More Final Fantasy than I'd been prepared to expect. But the highlight, just as it should have been, was the movies. And as far as J was concerned, it was Hudson Hawk or go home. So I watched it.

"But where Hudson Hawk was high octane, the Avengers is just regular unleaded"

The similarities between Hawk and The Avengers are amazing, and I'd almost be willing to believe that one was the sequel to the other. You've got conspiracies that run in countless odd directions, freakish badguys, and more liquid wierdness than you can shake a stick at. But where Hudson Hawk was high octane, the Avengers is just regular unleaded, which might be easier to handle for those less MRFHy of mind.

It's not a great flick... the first thought that rolled out of my head when it was all done was "Well, that made absolutely no sense at all." The second thought, however, was "...but it was damn funny." Honestly, I laughed my cute little heiney off. Right from the opening scene, with the killer milkman, to the conference table of conspiring Care Bears, to the inexplicably costumed Uma Thurman, I was laughing the whole time (and on only one beer! Imagine!).

Now all this said, I'm not at all familiar with the TV original, and I've been told that that's likely the source of most of the outrage surrounding the movie. The characters wouldn't have done this, he wouldn't have said that... maybe it's all for the best, but in this case, ignorance is certainly bliss. I wonder what kind of reception the Avengers' script would have received if it were written with a different name and characters? And if that weren't enough, a full HOUR was cut from the running length, which probably would have explained an awful lot of the seemingly random plot turns. Me, I just went limp and enjoyed the ride.

It's light, it's definitely brainless, and it's got a sense of humour that will probably offend Britons while flying right over the collective head of North America. But I've never before seen a movie with more sexual innuendo, more umbrella tricks than Burgess Meredith and Danny DeVito combined, more (awesome) machine-gun armed robot bees, more mascara-wearing chubby thugs, and more inexplicable plot twists than this one (okay, maybe Hawk), and surely there's some recognition deserved for that.

Justin's Rating: Uma + Tight Outfits = High Replay Value
Justin's Review: Well, seeing as how the entire MRFH disagrees (and violently) about this movie, I decided to leap in and make my say. True, it would be more interesting to have them battle it out, American Gladiators-style, but instead I rented this movie last night and watched it.

"Plot is quite irrelevant, so fortunately there's a lot of eye candy to chew on and develop optical cavities."

This flick is full camp, from beginning to end. Starring everyone's favorite Nazi (Ralph Finnes) and heroin addict (Uma Thurman), The Avengers pits these two against the evil forces of Sean Connery and his roguish accent. And some scheme involving weather control (you may laugh, but you have obviously not lived in my college town of Grove City, where we might experience a tornado, flood, and 85 degrees of sun all in the same day).

Plot is quite irrelevant, so fortunately there's a lot of eye candy to chew on and develop optical cavities. High tech gadgets, killer robotic bees, and the attack of giant teddy bears all abound to delight those of us who have just graduated the School of Unreality.

Shrug. It was amusing, not horrible, not spectacular.

With that out of the way, I turn my attention to being remarkably juvenile about foreign countries and their quirky habits. First of all, any foreign country (Britain) that can't stomach a good cup of black oil (coffee) and has to take a break for tea with such regularity and fanaticism that it puts Muslim prayers to shame raises an eyebrow in my book. How the poppin' fresh did this custom get started? Justin has an idea:

Two tense, muscle-bound armies are facing each other across the battlefield. To charge would be certain death, but with a glory that would urge bards to sing about renound warriors of old. Of course, the warriors in question would be fertilizer, but that's okay. The flag is raised, then dropped. The armies charge toward each other, brandishing weapons and other scary metallic items.

Suddenly, an old wise man steps into the middle of the field and yells, "Stop! We should put our differences aside to drink water soaked in tea leaves! And eat macaroons! And use our accents to annoy the hell out of foreigners!"

Of course, it's very hard to put a break on two charging armies, and the old wise man got caught in the middle of the frey and vaporized. But after the battle, the survivors thought the whole tea suggestion ideal, and a tradition was born.

How was that? History is what I make it, peoples.

BUSTED! "Well, this isn't silly at all" "I too, am left-handed!"

Didja Notice? [some sources: IMDb]

• Care Bears: the ominous threat!
• On two separate occasions, closeups of the robo-bees hitting the trees show very clearly that they're on wires.
• A getaway AIR BALLOON?!?
• What is it with British spies (in this case, Mother near the end) having the smallest handguns possible?
• DeWinter (Connery) actually lets Steed and Peel into his hideout. Voluntarily. Had he not done that, he'd have won, and the heroes would likely have frozen on the surface. I guess that's the big karma payoff for all his years thwarting similarly dumb bad guys.
• The world's first auto-destruct sequence that makes sense! No elaborate, 10 hour countdown. Just "Auto destruct activated, 3, 2, 1..." and a big BOOM.
• The chess moves that Steed and Peel throw back and forth at each other are the same moves as the chess game in Blade Runner.

Is It Worth Staying Through End Credits?

We have no idea (but we'll let you know soon!)

Unnecessary Background [some sources: ]

content

Intermission! [some sources: IMDb]

Look for, (or rather, listen for) Patrick MacNee, who played John Steed in the original 60's series, as the voice of Colonel Invisible Jones, head of the Ministry's Archives.

After terrible test screenings, the film was hastily recut from its original 2.5-hour running time to the 89-minute version released to theaters. This explains why there are so many continuity/narrative errors in the film.

Groovy Quotes

Steed: This is all terribly formal. Must I go on calling you Dr. Peel?
Peel: No, under the circumstances you may call me Mrs. Peel.
Steed: Much better!

August de Winter: Steed! John Steed! What a horse's ass of a name.
Steed: Clearly you're not a racing man, Sir August.

John Steed: After all, according to your file, you're a psychopathic personality with schizophrenic delusions, suffering from recurring amnesia based on traumatic repression leading to outbursts of antisocial and violent behavior. Knight to king seven. Check.
Emma Peel: Is that really what you think of me?
John Steed: Well... just my type, Mrs. Peel.

Sir Wynter: In India you can get a good 10 inches overnight!

Sir Wynter: Nothing is impossible, just mathematically improbable.

Sir Wynter: You will buy your weather from me! And by God you'll pay for it.

Sir Wynter: A man with an umbrella is a man praying for rain.
John Steed: And a man without one is a fool.

Sir Wynter: Weather is no longer in God's hands but in mine.

Emma Peel: How now, brown cow.

Soundtrack Review

A very good re-doing of the Avengers theme, and a good ska song, "I Am," but little else to offer. Get it on sale, maybe.

If you liked this movie, try these:

• Hudson Hawk
• League of Extraordinary Gentlemen
• A View to a Kill