The Avengers

1998

Directed by Jeremiah Chechik

Welcome back to Movie Monday, where we’re continuing our relentless march down my personal list of the worst movies I’ve ever seen. This week we’re suiting up for number 47: The Avengers, the 1998 satirical spy action comedy that managed to take a beloved British television series and turn it into one of the most spectacular misfires in cinema history. And yes, before you ask – this is the other Avengers movie, the one that makes you appreciate just how good we had it with Iron Man and Captain America.

Now, as always, this list reflects my personal opinion. If you somehow found joy in watching Ralph Fiennes awkwardly wielding an umbrella while Uma Thurman delivered dialogue that sounded like it was written by someone who had never heard actual human conversation, more power to you. We can still be friends. But if you think this movie represents quality entertainment, we might need to have a serious discussion about your relationship with masochism.

I’ll admit upfront that this one stings a little more than usual because I was genuinely excited about it. Picture this: it’s the summer of 1998, I’m a high school senior, and the trailer for The Avengers drops. Ralph Fiennes fresh off The English Patient! Uma Thurman riding high from Pulp Fiction! Sean Connery being, well, Sean Connery! A stylish spy thriller based on a classic TV series! What could possibly go wrong?

Spoiler alert: literally everything.

From Television Gold to Hollywood Fool’s Gold

To understand how spectacularly The Avengers fails, you need to appreciate what made the original 1960s television series so special. The Avengers wasn’t just another spy show – it was a perfectly calibrated blend of wit, style, and British eccentricity that turned espionage into high art. John Steed and Emma Peel were the epitome of cool sophistication, trading clever banter while saving the world from increasingly bizarre threats. The show understood that the key to great spy fiction isn’t just the action – it’s the chemistry between the leads and the particular brand of dry, understated humor that made even the most outlandish plots seem effortlessly charming.

The 1998 film version took one look at this delicate balance and decided what it really needed was weather control devices, teddy bear costumes, and mechanical bees. Because apparently, someone at Warner Bros. looked at the elegant sophistication of the original series and thought, “You know what this needs? More inexplicable weirdness and less actual entertainment value.”

The path to this disaster began when producer Jerry Weintraub spent nearly a decade trying to get an Avengers movie off the ground. Warner Bros. eventually greenlit the project largely based on the star power of the cast and their appreciation for director Jeremiah Chechik’s previous work on the 1996 remake of Diabolique. What they got instead was a $60 million lesson in how not to adapt beloved television properties.

The Butchering Begins: When Studios Attack

Here’s where the story gets truly tragic. According to screenwriter Don MacPherson, what Warner Bros. released to theaters bore almost no resemblance to what was originally intended. The film that Chechik submitted was 115 minutes long – a “wild revenge thriller” that apparently made sense and had actual character development. But after disastrous test screenings (including one in front of what was described as a “largely Spanish-speaking, working class” audience in Phoenix who hated every minute of it), Warner Bros. panicked.

The studio took control away from Weintraub and Chechik, brutally cutting the film from 115 minutes down to a barely coherent 89 minutes. Key scenes were removed entirely, including an opening sequence that would have explained the clone plot, character development that might have made the romance believable, and apparently most of the middle section of the movie. As San Francisco Chronicle critic Mick LaSalle noted, “There’s never a moment when Emma and Steed realize who the villain is. At first, they don’t know. Next, they’re in a titanic battle to the death.”

The editing was so severe that original composer Michael Kamen, who had crafted a score incorporating the classic Avengers theme, couldn’t make his music work with the butchered footage and was forced to abandon the project. Joel McNeely was brought in to score what was essentially a completely different movie, but even his efforts couldn’t mask the fact that Warner Bros. had turned a potentially coherent film into an expensive fever dream.

The Fundamental Problem: Style Without Substance

Even if we assume the original 115-minute cut was a masterpiece (which seems unlikely given the source material we’re working with), the version that made it to theaters is a masterclass in how to completely misunderstand your source material. The original Avengers TV series worked because it understood that style means nothing without substance to back it up. Steed’s bowler hat and umbrella weren’t just fashion accessories – they were extensions of his character, symbols of a particular kind of British sophistication that the show used to ground its more fantastical elements.

The 1998 film, by contrast, treats these iconic elements like costume pieces in a very expensive dress-up game. Ralph Fiennes looks completely uncomfortable with Steed’s signature umbrella (apparently he found the traditional whangee handle so awkward that they had to switch to a rosewood one), and his entire performance feels like someone doing a bad impression of what they think a British gentleman should be. It’s all surface-level mimicry with none of the underlying confidence that made Patrick Macnee’s original Steed so effortlessly cool.

The plot, such as it is, involves weather control, evil clones, teddy bear-suited villains, and a secret organization that apparently has nothing better to do than create elaborate death traps involving mechanical bees. It’s the kind of over-the-top nonsense that might work in a comic book or a particularly campy TV episode, but stretched over 89 minutes (even after the brutal editing), it becomes exhaustingly absurd. The film mistakes weirdness for cleverness and assumes that if something is sufficiently bizarre, audiences won’t notice that it doesn’t make any sense.

Ralph Fiennes: Wrong Actor, Wrong Role, Wrong Everything

Poor Ralph Fiennes. Here’s an actor who had just proven his dramatic chops in Schindler’s List and The English Patient, and someone decided he was the perfect choice to play a suave British spy. The casting seems logical on paper – Fiennes is British, he’s sophisticated, he can certainly wear a suit. But watching him attempt to embody Steed’s particular brand of unflappable cool is like watching a classical violinist try to play jazz. Technically proficient, but missing the essential spirit that makes it work.

Fiennes approaches the role with the same intense seriousness he brought to playing Nazis and romantic leads, which creates a fundamental mismatch with the material. Steed should glide through even the most dangerous situations with a raised eyebrow and a dry quip. Fiennes looks like he’s constantly worried about his next line, which kills any sense of the effortless confidence that defined the character. The fact that he later said the film was “a badge of honor to have a real flop on your resumé” suggests even he knew something had gone terribly wrong.

Uma Thurman fares slightly better as Emma Peel, but only because her character is given marginally more to do than stand around looking confused. However, she’s saddled with dialogue that sounds like it was written by someone who had never heard actual human conversation, and her chemistry with Fiennes is so nonexistent that their romantic subplot feels like it was inserted from a completely different movie. The original series deliberately kept the Steed-Peel relationship ambiguous, understanding that sexual tension works better than sexual resolution. The film kills that tension by forcing a romance that neither the actors nor the audience seem to believe in.

Sean Connery: How the Mighty Have Fallen

But the most painful casting choice is Sean Connery as the villain Sir August de Wynter. Here’s an actor who defined cinematic cool as James Bond, who brought gravitas to everything from Indiana Jones to The Hunt for Red October, reduced to delivering lines like “Time to die” while controlling the weather from a secret island. It’s not just that Connery seems to be phoning it in – though he absolutely is – it’s that you can see him realizing in real-time what a terrible mistake he’s made.

This was part of a pattern for Connery in his final years as an actor. Between The Avengers and the equally disastrous The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (which finally convinced him to retire from acting entirely), Connery seemed to be actively seeking out projects that would tarnish his legacy. It’s like watching Michael Jordan play for the Washington Wizards, except instead of just being past his prime, Jordan was also being asked to play baseball while wearing clown shoes.

The tragedy is that Connery asked for his role to be expanded when he joined the project, apparently thinking he could bring some gravitas to the proceedings. Instead, he just gave himself more opportunities to look uncomfortable while delivering exposition about weather control devices. When Sean Connery can’t make your villain interesting, you might want to reconsider your script.

Technical Achievement in Service of Nothing

One of the film’s few genuine accomplishments is its production design and visual effects. The movie looks expensive – all those British manor houses, elaborate sets, and seamlessly integrated special effects don’t come cheap. The mechanical bees are convincingly menacing, the weather effects are appropriately dramatic, and Emma Peel’s clone is technically impressive for 1998 CGI standards.

But technical proficiency means nothing when it’s in service of a story that makes no sense and characters nobody cares about. It’s like watching someone use a Stradivarius to play “Chopsticks” – impressive craftsmanship applied to something that didn’t deserve the effort. The film’s $60 million budget is visible in every frame, which somehow makes the whole enterprise even more depressing. This wasn’t a low-budget disaster where you could blame the failures on lack of resources. This was a major studio production with A-list talent that still managed to create something unwatchable.

The costumes deserve particular mention for completely missing the point of the original series. Steed’s impeccable style wasn’t just about looking good – it was about projecting an image of unflappable British sophistication that could handle any crisis. In the film, the costumes look like expensive Halloween outfits worn by people who don’t understand what they’re supposed to represent.

Box Office Reality Check: When Even Bad Movies Do Better

The Avengers opened on August 14, 1998, in the cinematic graveyard that is late summer – a release date that studio executives reserve for movies they know are going to fail. Warner Bros. famously refused to hold any press screenings, essentially admitting they had no faith in their own product. When your own studio won’t show your movie to critics, that’s usually a sign that you’re about to witness a spectacular failure.

The film managed only $10.3 million in its opening weekend, landing in third place behind Saving Private Ryan and How Stella Got Her Groove Back. For context, this was the same summer that gave us Armageddon, There’s Something About Mary, and The Truman Show – movies that understood how to entertain audiences. The Avengers ultimately grossed just $23.4 million domestically against its $60 million budget, making it one of the year’s biggest financial disasters.

Even more embarrassing is the international box office, where the film managed only $31.3 million worldwide total. For a movie based on a British television series with international appeal, starring globally recognized actors, these numbers represent a catastrophic failure to connect with audiences anywhere on the planet. When you can’t even make your money back internationally with Sean Connery and Ralph Fiennes, you’ve created something truly special in its awfulness.

Critical Massacre: When Even Kind Critics Give Up

The critical reception was about as brutal as you’d expect for a movie this fundamentally broken. The film currently holds a 5% rating on Rotten Tomatoes – and that 5% probably consists of critics who felt sorry for the actors or were impressed by the production design. The consensus reading describes it as “an ineptly written, woefully miscast disaster,” which might be the most diplomatic way to say “this movie made us physically ill.”

Roger Ebert, who famously had a soft spot for ambitious failures, gave the film one star and seemed genuinely offended by the experience. More tellingly, critics noted that despite being written by an Englishman, the American production team had completely misunderstood the symbols of “Britishness” that were central to the original series. The inclusion of a tea dispenser in Steed’s Bentley (with milk already added) was cited as a perfect example of how the filmmakers had missed the point entirely.

The British press was particularly harsh, with The Birmingham Post calling it “the worst film ever made” and comparing it to a turkey that should have been distributed by a poultry company. When your own countrymen are mocking your misunderstanding of British culture, you’ve achieved a special level of failure.

Perhaps most damning was Janet Maslin’s comment in The New York Times that at “a pared-down, barely rational 90 minutes, The Avengers is short but not short enough.” When critics are complaining that your 89-minute movie feels too long, you’ve created something that actively resists entertainment.

Why The Avengers Earns Its Place at Number 47

So why does The Avengers land at number 47 on my worst movies list? It’s not just because it’s incompetent – though it absolutely is. It’s because the film represents the worst kind of Hollywood arrogance: taking something that worked perfectly well and destroying it because executives thought they knew better.

The original Avengers series was a delicate balance of wit, style, and sophistication that took years to perfect. The 1998 film took one look at that balance and decided what it really needed was weather control devices and teddy bear costumes. It’s like watching someone take a perfectly tuned watch apart and reassemble it with a hammer.

What makes this particularly infuriating is that all the pieces were there for a genuinely good movie. Ralph Fiennes and Uma Thurman are talented actors who could have made this work with better material. Sean Connery, even past his prime, still had enough presence to be compelling with a decent script. The production values were top-notch, and the source material provided a perfect template for success.

Instead, we got a movie that fails at every level – as an adaptation, as entertainment, and as basic storytelling. It’s a film that seems designed to waste everyone’s time and money as efficiently as possible, including the audience’s. When your movie makes people nostalgic for bad spy movies, you’ve achieved something truly special in its awfulness.

The film also represents everything wrong with studio interference taken to its logical extreme. Whatever Jeremiah Chechik originally intended (and we’ll probably never know since the original cut seems to be lost forever), Warner Bros. turned it into an incoherent mess that satisfied nobody. It’s a cautionary tale about what happens when executives panic and start cutting things without understanding what they’re cutting.

The Silver Lining: Learning from Disaster

If there’s one positive thing to say about The Avengers, it’s that it serves as a perfect example of how not to adapt beloved television properties. The film’s failure helped establish some basic rules for future adaptations: respect your source material, understand what made it work in the first place, and don’t assume that bigger budgets automatically equal better entertainment.

The movie also provided Ralph Fiennes with a valuable lesson about choosing projects more carefully. His subsequent career suggests he learned from this experience, avoiding similar high-concept disasters in favor of roles that actually suited his talents. Sometimes the best thing a bad movie can do for an actor’s career is teach them what to say no to.

And Sean Connery? Well, The Avengers (along with The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen) convinced him to retire from acting entirely, which might have been a blessing in disguise. Better to go out after a few missteps than to continue making increasingly desperate choices in pursuit of one last hit.

The Bottom Line

The Avengers stands as a monument to wasted potential and studio incompetence. It’s a film that had every advantage – talented actors, a proven concept, unlimited resources – and still managed to create something that actively repels entertainment. Watching it is like observing a master class in how to turn gold into lead through sheer determination and bad decision-making.

The movie fails because it confuses expensive production values with actual quality, star power with charisma, and weirdness with cleverness. It’s a film that seems to have been made by people who had heard of the original series but never actually watched it, resulting in a expensive imitation that captures none of the original’s charm.

In the end, The Avengers is like a beautifully wrapped present that contains nothing but disappointment. It looks impressive from the outside, but the moment you start unwrapping it, you realize someone has played a very expensive practical joke on you. It’s a movie that makes you appreciate just how difficult it is to create something genuinely entertaining, and how easy it is to destroy something good through arrogance and incompetence.

Next week on Movie Monday, we’ll be taking a break from the worst movies list since it’s the first Monday of the month. Instead, we’ll be diving into an animated Disney classic with 101 Dalmatians – a film that actually understands how to entertain audiences without insulting their intelligence. Until then, remember: just because you can afford to make a movie doesn’t mean you should, and sometimes the most expensive disasters are the ones that hurt the most to watch.