In the midst of all the Bond-age going around, it seemed like a good time to mount a defense for a true underdog: the oft-maligned and unjustly scorned 1998 film version of
The Avengers. Make no mistake,
The Avengers is not a great movie, but it’s far from the train wreck it was painted upon release -- and since it’s never shaken that stench, nor stirred up a massive cult following, the Morgue aims to set matters straight.
I’m a huge fan of
The Avengers TV series – well, let me rephrase that…I’m a huge fan of the Diana Rigg / Emma Peel-era
[1]. If anyone might’ve been a harsh critic of this redux it was going to be me, but upon seeing the film’s trailer, it became a must-see movie. The style, the vibe, the look – everything about that 2 minutes smacked of slavish faithfulness to the series. There was no other popcorn flick I was looking forward to that summer as much as this one. So you can imagine how my heart and hopes sank when the buzz started mounting. Word from across the pond following the British premiere was dire; Warner Bros. opted to not screen it for U.S. critics, so reviews were scarce upon its U.S. opening.
Regardless, I went to an early screening on opening day and was weirdly entertained by what I viewed. It wasn’t the masterpiece of which I’d dreamed -- nor was it the steaming pile I’d been hearing about. Were people seeing the same film as me? A quote I distinctly recall reading after the Brit premiere: “I don’t know what that was, but it certainly wasn’t
The Avengers”. Um, yes it was…and there’s no way it could ever be mistaken for anything other than The Avengers. Of the many who were so quick to trash the movie, I wondered who’d even seen an episode in at least 20 years. Maybe that person meant, “It wasn’t
Patrick Macnee and
Diana Rigg”. If so, fair enough - it’s not, nor could it have been unless the movie was set in a nursing home for retired secret agents...bringing me to the film’s problematic conundrums, which I’ll address before moving on to my likes.
Screenwriter
Don MacPherson undoubtedly wrote the script with Macnee and Rigg’s characterizations of John Steed and Emma Peel at the forefront of the concept. And really, how else would one write such clearly defined, iconic characters?
Remove stars
Ralph Fiennes and
Uma Thurman, and it isn’t a huge stretch to picture Macnee and Rigg playing the parts. It’d be blasphemous to write them any other way and still call the movie
The Avengers.
Let’s get Mrs. Peel out of the way first. No actress could’ve done justice to Rigg’s definitive performance. Rigg as Peel is like James Arness as Marshall Matt Dillon. Leonard Nimoy as Mr. Spock. Bob Denver as Gilligan. I’m hardly an Uma devotee and despite my pre-release enthusiasm (ahem…that sounds filthy), never harbored illusions that she’d live up to Rigg. She is probably miscast, but what actress wouldn’t have been? All that said, she’s surprisingly watchable and most importantly, wears leather like a second skin and catsuits with confidence. Her British accent is consistent, even if a tad flat. She plays Peel with a light, flirty coolness, paying homage to Rigg’s legacy without xeroxing the past. For every complaint one might have about Thurman’s take, there are kudos to be given – to be sure, this was an odd job.
Fiennes is a bit more complicated. He’s far more even than Thurman, but his biggest problem is in choosing to make the role his own, rather than play it with the carefree demeanor Macnee infused into Steed, as it appears to be written. Fiennes instead wants his Steed to be serious, never minding that the material doesn’t really call for it. He plays Steed as Bond minus the sex and violence – the equation totaling an emasculated secret agent of sorts. Forgive Fiennes this transgression -- had he invoked Macnee, he likely would’ve come across as a dandified homosexual. For once the famous
Seinfeld quote can be corrupted: “And everything would have been wrong with that”. Macnee straddled the fence in this area due to the naïveté of ‘60s TV audiences and the ongoing conviction of his performance…but whittle the Steed basics down to a 100-page script, and you might as well cast
Rupert Everett (which, now that I think about it, would have rocked).
So at this point you might wonder what exactly it is that I like about this movie (even I’m having a tough time getting there). Outside of its conceptual devotion to the original, I like
The Avengers for the sheer scale of its out-of-time-and-place imagination (which again, is what the series was always about). The plot revolves around the megalomaniacal Sir August de Wynter’s (played to the robust hilt by
Sean Connery) plan to control the weather and sell it to world leaders. Audacious! Clima-terrorism!! Control the weather and you control the world!!!
Few screen villains concoct such ideal schemes. Blowing up the world is a hell of a lot less fun than making it snow in San Antonio. It’s nearly impossible to tell where Connery’s heart is throughout the proceedings. Is he phoning it in? Is he hamming it up? Does it even matter? When the granddaddy of all super spies channels Goldfinger, Largo and Blofeld into one deliciously camp creation, it’s best not to ponder the how’s and why’s. Accept that this is unique film history, whether you like it or not.
The film exists in an idealized ‘60s pop limbo where normal rules of spy fare simply don’t apply. Nor does it look anything like our reality. It exists in one place only -- the hyperreal world of John Steed and Emma Peel, which is a wholly distinctive universe. It's a world where deadly, remote-controlled mechanical bees attack our heroes. Where villains gather together dressed in rainbow-coloured teddy bear costumes. Where
Eddie Izzard plays a mute henchman and
Shaun Ryder is one of his lackeys. It feels like a greatest hits package of the TV series. Scene after set piece echoes many an
Avengers episode of days gone by – it’s difficult to believe any true fan wouldn’t find themselves intoxicated by the attention paid to detail.
Borderline amazing is the film working at all. Early test screenings led to hasty, massive recutting. I’ve read that the original cut ran anywhere from 115 minutes to 2 and half hours – its final running time is a measly 89 minutes; imagine if literally more than a third of the film is missing! Despite the cuts, and perhaps due to the film’s somewhat compartmentalized structure and fairly simple plot, it miraculously moves along with an amiable stride. Aside from a few minor continuity glitches, one wouldn’t guess it was such a rape victim. And yet I cannot help but think of what might have been, what director
Jeremiah S. Chechick and MacPherson envisioned.
Bits of the excised material can be glimpsed in the trailer (the only real “extra” on the DVD); IMDB also provides
a list of numerous cut scenes. It’s a travesty that the stink still surrounding
The Avengers is likely the only thing keeping a Director’s Cut DVD from happening. IMDB users rate (at the time of writing) the film a paltry 3.3/10. In comparison, IMDB users currently rate
A View to a Kill (which coincidentally co-stars Patrick Macnee) a whopping 6/10. I’d put Moore’s swansong up against
The Avengers and challenge anyone to prove Bond's superiority. Same for
Moonraker. Heck, I’d even put it up against
The World Is Not Enough, which came out a year after
The Avengers, and is as bloated a misfire as anything the Moore era produced (which is not to bag on Moore's Bond, who is, strangely enough, my favorite).
When it comes right down to it,
The Avengers should probably never have been turned into a film. The whimsical, flirtatious, non-cynical nature of the concept is rooted in a time and place that bears no resemblance to today. Surely there’re a surplus of
Avengers fans that abhor the piece, but they’re missing out on the filmmakers' affectionate attempt to do right by the show’s spirit, rather than modernize it into something rooted in the present. Do that and you end up with movies like
The Saint or the
Mission: Implausible flicks. Maybe these are better films than
The Avengers, but do they embody the spirit of their source material? I can picture such an
Avengers film and it would be anything but
The Avengers.
Lest anyone believe I've got beefs with Bond, that's not the case. Here are my Top Five Favorite Bond Theme Tunes:1. "Nobody Does It Better" by Carly Simon
2. "Live and Let Die" by Paul McCartney and Wings
3. "Tomorrow Never Dies" by Sheryl Crow
4. "For Your Eyes Only" by Sheena Easton
5. "Licence to Kill" by Gladys Knight
[1] I’ve seen bits and pieces of the Honor Blackman/Cathy Gale era, but the videotape quality is pretty rough and they lack that
Avengers feel. Seen most of the Linda Thorson/Tara King period, but it's too camp even for my tastes. Never seen even a single episode of
The New Avengers. So why the indulgent qualifiers? Maybe I’m no more of an
Avengers authority than the
Doctor Who viewer that’s only ever seen Tom Baker.
Two items of business before moving forward...
If this can possibly be believed, I finally saw Casino Royale this past Saturday night, after weeks of The Don badgering and heckling me for not doing so already. It was never a matter of thinking I wasn’t going to like it; quite the contrary – I was certain I would. But Bond is this little universe many of us have grown up with, and once the floodgates opened and phrases like “Best Bond ever” and “Negates everything that came before it” started being tossed around, I instinctively pulled back a little bit, and my interest somewhat waned. I’m not going to review Casino Royale at this time, but suffice it to say despite being pretty taken by the whole affair and recognizing that this is where the series should have been when Pierce Brosnan took over, its existence didn’t poke even a minor hole in all that came before. Indeed, Casino Royale may have given me an even deeper appreciation for the series.
Having received for Christmas (thanks to my dad & JJ) Volumes 2 & 3 of the James Bond Ultimate Edition DVD box sets and having the other two on the way (thanks to some clever eBay bidding on my part), my love for Bond has in recent weeks been reinvigorated. For some bizarre reason, the last time I collected Bond was on VHS as a teenager. I skipped not only the previous DVD releases, but also – inexplicably - the laserdisc versions, which should have been a no-brainer as they were my first opportunity to own the series in widescreen. Since obtaining these sets over the holidays, it’s beginning to feel like fate: Bond has never looked as good on home video as he does on these new releases and I'm glad I waited.
On top of everything else, these editions feature newly recorded commentaries by Sir Roger Moore on all seven of his outings and as Rog is my favorite Bond, his thoughts, memories and anecdotes are icing on the cake sort of fare. Say what you will about Moore (I may not even argue with you), but I don't see Sean Connery taking time out of early retirement to reward loyal fans with the same.
Thanks to The Don I'll be seeing David Lynch's much talked about Inland Empire on the 24th at the lovely Paramount Theatre in Austin, TX -- with Lynch himself in attendance! Of course, it's hugely doubtful there'll be a chance to go one on one with the man -- but as I've often said to many a fellow Lynch Nut, of all my favorite filmmakers, he's the only one to whom I'd have no idea what to say. Lynch is the kind of guy whose voice and vision stands on its own.
Little Children (finally!) opened at the Crossroads Bijou this weekend; for those of you who don’t live in San Antonio, it’s also on 100 or so other screens across the country. After months of building it up in my head as this probable piece of celluloid perfection (due to numerous factors), and then subsequently worrying that it couldn’t possibly live up to the hype (due to experiencing the "letdown" too many times to count), I discovered a work even more rewarding than I’d imagined or hoped. There isn’t a weak performance or moment on display, and its characters & situations left me with as many questions as they did answers. It’s unsettling material that also frequently had me in stitches, and as the end credits rolled, I was a weeping mess -- I'm still trying to figure out why that was.
Doctor Who Season Two (or Season 28, depending on your anal-retentiveness) has been a string of entertaining highs and lows, in terms of both quality and intensity. It’s been a season of returns, renewals and reinventions. We’ve met Cybermen, a werewolf, clockwork robots, Queen Victoria, Madame du Pompadour, and at the edge of the universe, maybe even Satan himself. We visited a current parallel Earth and also a New Earth in the year 5,000,000,23. There were trips to 1953, 1879, 2012, and the 51st century -- a time that led to a tour of 18th century France. Sarah Jane Smith came back to us and Mickey Smith said goodbye. K-9 was blown up and put back together. Jackie Tyler died, but Pete Tyler lived. Throughout the adventures, there were only three constants: the Doctor, his TARDIS and Rose Tyler – at the end of the two-parter “Army of Ghosts” & “Doomsday”, we bid a gut-wrenching farewell to one of them.
Tonight FX delivers the Season Four finale of its highest rated series, Nip/Tuck. Based on the 14 episodes presented thus far, this season's subtitle should be “The Apology”, because after the disaster that was Season Three, that’s what was owed to long-term fans -- and it’s largely what producer/writer Ryan Murphy and his band of twisted lunatics delivered.
Dear Russell T. Davies,
As “The Impossible Planet” drew to a close and “The Satan Pit” begins, two deaths occur: A pair of redshirts take it for the team. I had to watch “The Impossible Planet” several times before locating them prior to their passing -- a man and a woman; security drones working for Mr. Jefferson (Danny Webb), and they do appear in numerous scenes, subtly registering existence. The funniest moment occurs early on in “Planet”, when the Doctor and Rose are first brought before the rest of the crew. Look closely to the far right of the screen -- Mr. Jefferson clearly ushers them out of the room before they can even be introduced. This two-parter sports a claustrophobic, tight-knit cast, and the pair’s existence isn’t even verbally acknowledged. They have no dialogue, no names and aren’t featured in either episode’s credits. Mind you, this is less of a criticism than an observation of the peculiar; such obvious worm dirt rarely features on Doctor Who.
In the midst of all the Bond-age going around, it seemed like a good time to mount a defense for a true underdog: the oft-maligned and unjustly scorned 1998 film version of The Avengers. Make no mistake, The Avengers is not a great movie, but it’s far from the train wreck it was painted upon release -- and since it’s never shaken that stench, nor stirred up a massive cult following, the Morgue aims to set matters straight.
Remove stars Ralph Fiennes and Uma Thurman, and it isn’t a huge stretch to picture Macnee and Rigg playing the parts. It’d be blasphemous to write them any other way and still call the movie The Avengers.
Few screen villains concoct such ideal schemes. Blowing up the world is a hell of a lot less fun than making it snow in San Antonio. It’s nearly impossible to tell where Connery’s heart is throughout the proceedings. Is he phoning it in? Is he hamming it up? Does it even matter? When the granddaddy of all super spies channels Goldfinger, Largo and Blofeld into one deliciously camp creation, it’s best not to ponder the how’s and why’s. Accept that this is unique film history, whether you like it or not.
Consider the notion that three types of viewers partake in the new series of Doctor Who:
Earlier this year when Barry Manilow released "The Greatest Songs of the Fifties" and it became his first #1 album since 1977's "Live", I was more than a tad disheartened. I wanted such an event to be centered around an album of Barry originals, not a bunch of covers. A case of having shit in one hand and wishin' in the other? Possibly. Only I didn't have that, because I didn't buy the "Fifties" disc. Why? I only liked maybe two of the songs he chose for the album. Hence the "shit" joke; there's very little music from that decade I care for (maybe if it had been an album full of Jerry Lee Lewis covers...which, quite frankly, would be tres cool...or a total disaster...ahem...).
“The Idiot’s Lantern” is the halfway point of the second season of Doctor Who, and as such there’s a transitional feel to the proceedings. With Mickey out of the picture, the Doctor (David Tennant) and Rose (Billie Piper) are left traveling on their own once again, and they seem to have moved past some of their earlier-in-the-season push and pull antics. Appearing more connected due to recent events, team spirit has returned to the TARDIS and Elvis on The Ed Sullivan Show is their target destination. Of course it goes without saying the Doctor’s unable to get them to New York and instead they end up in 1953 London, the day before the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II. (Just once I’d like to see him miss and end up in Mozambique -- anywhere but the British Isles.)
