It could have—should have—worked: a sleek updating of the smart and kooky spy-fi series. Instead, audiences were given a lame story (some nonsense about a scheme to control the weather) and a novice director who achieved the rather improbable feat of making stars Ralph Fiennes, Uma Thurman, Sean Connery look wan and confused.
WHAT OTHERS SAID:
“… Maybe actors should be given some benefit of the doubt when they’re directed by a total incompetent like [director Jeremiah] Chechik, but everyone in “The Avengers” is stupefyingly awful… The only thing preventing “The Avengers” from being a legendary Hollywood disaster is that the filmmakers have no idea of what legendary means.”
– Charles Taylor, Salon.com, August 17, 1998
ROTTEN TOMATOES RATING: 14%
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oKNmPh_MGOA]