The Avengers Movie on a Desert Island

frank · Post by **frank** » Wed Oct 01, 2008 2:49 pm

I think it was best put when the film was described as a bad avengers movie. As a normal action film it is adequet

Ultimately the problem for me came down to the director and the writer. I felt they approached the film too much like fan boys and not like filmmakers. The plotting and pacing of a 2 hour film in the theater is a different animal then doing a a tv episode, even if it is a 2parter or a 2 hour special

The tone of the film is not consistent and it tries too hard to be avenger-ish. Because of that the film never quite achieves the right feel or humor of the show. And it is not like the 60s spy show would have been unreceivable at the time. Austin Powers had already come out.

The plot is too padded for it's own good. The emma peel clone subplot is completely unnecessary as is having this be an "origin" of steed and mrs peel pairing up. And that Invisible Jones charcter-too much. The plot tries to reproduce too many scenes and scenarios directly from the tv show. The attempts at wit feel forced sometimes

Now I don't know if Clemens could have been more successful if he wrote the script, but I felt the wrong people made this movie

And yes they did not get the best people to play the leads. At least Uma Thurman looked like Mrs Peel and she's an actress who's proven herself to handle action. Fiennes I felt was the real miscast. The man is an excellent actor but he's got no naturall sense of humor or flare for comedy

On a visual level though the film has its individual moments. Their take on the recursive scene taken from House That Jack Built was quite eerie and effective. The giant bubble they used to invade the villain's domain was a moment that reflected the show IMHO.

kim · Post by **kim** » Wed Oct 01, 2008 3:02 pm

Well the movie just arrived a couple of minutes ago, so I'm off to watch it. I'll be back in a couple of hours to let you know what I think.

Dandy Forsdyke · Post by **Dandy Forsdyke** » Wed Oct 01, 2008 3:23 pm

I don't really have much to add to what I've already said. Whether it's fair or not, a lot of Avengers fans hate the film. Partly because of how it was made, partly because of how it was cast, and partly because it did soo badly critically and commercialy and prevents another attempt of recreating the franchise.

Plus, as someone else touched upon, there was also a far better/more successful movie about a British agent in a land of Carnaby Street - Austin Powers - made just a year before.

It's good that all parts of Avengerdom has it's fans (I dare say even the Garforth novels have a fan base), but be fair you have to be prepared for some flack on boards such as these about such a (shall we say) controversial film.

If only it was a bad, bad film. A so-bad-it-was-good movie like Plan Nine From Outer Space, Robot Monster or Santa Clause Conquers the Martians. Perhaps, as an afterthought, they should have headed in that direction...

Philippa · Post by **Philippa** » Wed Oct 01, 2008 3:55 pm

After reading everyone's opinion about the film here, I started to get curious about the film, and considered watching it.
But I just watched the trailer on Youtube, and it's put me right off again. Just the fact that their English accents are not up to scratch, and the fact that they're calling Emma Dr. Peel is enough to make me not want to watch it.
But then again, I'm a sucker for details..

frank · Post by **frank** » Wed Oct 01, 2008 4:11 pm

just FYI, they start out calling her dr Peel and then later steed decides to start calling her Mrs. Peel.

I forgot to mention I do like Jim Broadbent and Fiona Shaw playing Mother and Father though

Dandy Forsdyke · Post by **Dandy Forsdyke** » Wed Oct 01, 2008 4:15 pm

frank wrote:
I forgot to mention I do like Jim Broadbent and Fiona Shaw playing Mother and Father though

Yes, so do I. They should have scrapped the whole film and started again with Jim Broadbent and Fiona Shaw as a pair of old Avengers. Seriously.

kim · Post by **kim** » Wed Oct 01, 2008 4:43 pm

All right guys..I gave the movie an honest shot. I really tried to look at it from every angle, but I just couldn't get into it. While there were a couple of moments that made me think there might be hope, there just wasn't enough there to make me like it. And there were too many scenes that just made me cringe.

In my opinion, and remember this is strictly my opinion, this was just a bad movie all around.

*ducking the tomatos being thrown*

Kim

ShaggE · Post by **ShaggE** » Wed Oct 01, 2008 4:50 pm

So yeah, Kim and I sat down to watch the infamous film.

Now, I'm not a film snob. I love bad movies. Some of my favorite movies were distributed by Troma, the king of bad cinema. But even I have limits.

The Avengers movie defies all explanation. The plot is clearly just there to justify the enormous amounts of bad CG and cheesy explosions. (Not to mention this humdinger of a line: "Now is the winter of our discontent." Aha! Winter! Because he controls weather! Mr. Freeze would like to have a word with you.)

Every single element of this film is jaw-droppingly awful. The sets, the costumes, the dialog, the music, the effects, the comedy, the teddy bear costumes (!)... even the opening credits.

The one saving grace is the occasional well-delivered line. Unfortunately, for every witty line, there are fifty terrible puns to offset it. Should there be a lack of bad puns in a scene, there's always Steed and Peel in hamster balls.

Avengerholic · Post by **Avengerholic** » Thu Oct 02, 2008 10:27 pm

Philippa wrote:But I just watched the trailer on Youtube, and it's put me right off again. Just the fact that their English accents are not up to scratch

"Their" ? Who are you talking about ? With the exception of Thurman the entire cast is British !

Philippa · Post by **Philippa** » Fri Oct 03, 2008 6:49 am

^easy easy. I meant HER. Just a typo in my enthusiasm