The major issue was it was an iconic British show, that has a moderate international appeal, but made by Americans (the studio) who knew nothing about the show or British culture. They used so many tired and annoying British stereotypes that it was extremely cringe.

Seeing her in that costume leaves no doubt in my mind that Uma would've made an amazing Black Widow

I'm glad Fiennes got a second chance at playing a John Steed-like role in the Kingsman prequel. He absolutely smashed it there.

Uma Thurman in a leather jumpsuit is all I need to enjoy a movie.

5:09 oh my god that scene where the big bears are talking to each other was an actual movie scene???? For 20 years I thought that was a dream I had as a child, I always thought it was a strangely vivid dream

Ralph Fiennes rocked the bowler hat in The Kingsman too, where he actually played a great role.

I was in the 3rd Grade in 1998 and The Avengers British TV series was very popular amongst kids my age, due to re-runs aired on TV in my home country. My mom even took me and my little brother to see The Avengers film at the cinema in 1998.

I, for one, would love to see a directors cut of this. As a huge fan of the series I was a bit disappointed with the film, but it does have an oddball air about it that works in some sequences. But oh boy did the studio gut this! The exceedlingly muddled plot is totally on them.

I'd definitely watch an original cut or director's cut of this film in a heartbeat. I'd love to discover the original intention as the theatrical release is a mess. It's a shame as the production is gorgeous. Top drawer cinematography, sets, locations & costumes etc. The budget is on the screen, which is one thing the director absolutely got right.

I remember being excited about the film as I had been an avengers fan as a child. After watching the film I remember being confused and not really following what had happened. I wish it had been wonderful.

Patrick McNee and Diana Rigg are icons. You can't recast icons successfully.

Sean Connery decided to make "The Avengers" instead of playing Gandalf in LOTR. He didn't like the idea of making all three films at the same time, which would have meant a long time commitment. Too bad. If he had taken the role, he would have made approximately $400 million. Look it up if you are doubtful. Meanwhile, I really liked the original "Avengers" on TV. And Diana Rigg as Emma Peel? Wow. And the chemistry between her and Steed was wonderful.

Anyone (like most at the time) who thought "Villains in teddy-bear suits, WTF??" CLEARLY did not watch the original series. 😄 It does a perfectly good job of capturing the campy-wink British tone of the original show, the only problem was that Fiennes & Thurman didn't throw themselves into the roles as far. When Patrick Macnee "appears" in a cameo, he still out-Steeds Fiennes without even being onscreen. And, yes, the studio had chopping it into incoherence didn't help either.

I loved this movie when I was a kid. If I rewatched it now, I'd probably still love it for different reasons.

I hate to be this guy...but...Ralph pronounces his name as RAFE...sorry! Great video :-)

I have fond memories of this movie growing up so while not the best it’s definitely enjoyable personally.

Diana Rigg really was an incredibly beautiful woman

The film had a very long gestation history that went in various directions. Even Sam Hamm did a script I really want to read. Finally Don MacPherson developed the concept but his original script was continually rewritten at the behest of the studio. When Chechik was brought on the tone changed and MacPherson reworked the tone slightly to fit. Finally the studio insisted on removing the Mr. Peel backstory and main plot for Emma’s character arc. The remnants of this are echoed in the film. The villain was simplified into the single character of Sir August and the final shooting script resulted in the 115m or so original cut. This original version while not MacPherson’s darker original script concept was the film as intended and can be seen in the rare novelization which has all of the cut material. Warner Bros took out the scissors and hacked the film down to 89 minutes without regard for what they were cutting. Some small bits were also moved around. In the process of this most of the character moments and bits of fun were removed and thus the film is frequently incomprehensible. The holes left are extremely visible as there are jumps and sequences that stop dead. Even the final climax is missing and suddenly Steed is bleeding from a wound we never see him get. The cutting seems more vindictive as once a regime change happened, according to those involved the new person in charge never liked the project. To make matters worse the studio threw it out in the summer when they changed other slots around. I saw it in an empty theater in 1998. I was a kid so this was my introduction to the series but over the years I couldn’t understand why the film was so bizarre. Then the little bits of information started trickling out about the studio hack job on the theatrical cut. The original cut won’t fix everything as the film never was exactly doing the classic Avengers-but it was having fun and made sense in what the production termed “Avengersland”. Any film would become nonsensical if someone came in after the fact and removed swaths of footage without regard for what they were doing. Warner had a history of this in the 90’s as they also messed with Batman Forever. If the 1998 film has ever intrigued you, the novelization IS the original 115m version we never got and explains pretty much everything the theatrical cut buries.

I'm actuslly glad you highlighted this forgotten movie. Ok, maybe I saw a different cut of the film, but I truely don't think it's all that bad; it stays very true to the surreal, campy tone of the OG series, and there are some genuinely good performaces in it too! And you can certainly tell Connery was having a ball "flipping the script" and playing a supervilliain after decades as James Bond! It's all very tongue-in-cheek, just like the show. =)

I saw this back in the day with my girlfriend at the time. We spent most of the movie alternating between each trying to convince the other we should leave. To this day, it's the only film I've ever paid money to see and walked out on before the end.

Ralph Finnes’ name is pronounced RAYF. I am only mentioning it because you all do such a great job of research, and y’all love little bits of trivia.

👌🏽Diana Rigg later became Olenna Tyrell in Game of Thrones

Movie wasn't miscast. It had an awesome cast. The problem seems to be from the writing and direction, as well as studio interference.

I watched this in the cinema a long time ago. Its still enjoyable to me. I still say "How now brown cow?" once in a while because of Uma Thurman's Emma Peel 😅

I’ve always enjoyed this movie and I’m not ashamed to say it.

I saw this movie in middle school and had almost forgotten about it, save for the scene where two men are having a sword fight amid a flood. Strange that image sticks in my mind amid all the other outlandish things that happened in this movie.

I remember being gobsmacked at how poorly made the film was especially given the amazing potential of source material.

Not a huge deal but figured you would want to know for any future videos that include him, Ralph Fiennes name is pronounced "Rafe" (the L being silent). Great take on this movie too, it always confused me and I hated not liking it because it had so many awesome talents.

Yeah I remember really wanting to see this movie when it first came out because the trailer looked really good but then when I watched it oh boy. Trailers can be quite deceiving.

The real problem was that the producers and the director didn't understand the original series. They watched 3 episodes, and declared, "OK, we got that." And you can even tell which 3 episodes they chose... because they replicated them in the film. And included "Mother," which no sensible adaptation would have (then, made the character a drooling slop and the butt of jokes). But they couldn't execute what they were copying. That's why the edict requiring "empty streets" of the original series was misinterpreted: because they set large portions of the film in London... so the empty streets made no sense and were simply distracting and confusing. Both Finnes and Thurman were simply and unqualified awful, neither understanding the role. Smug and affected... not casual and cool. It was the kind of stuff we did as kids, in the late 60s, with our so-modern reel-to-reel recorders, pretending and making our own "Avengers" tapes. I'd say our impersonations were better than Finnes, by far. Both he and Thurman should have been ashamed. When the producers choose to sully the reputation of a wonderful show by dropping the "F-bomb," just to ensure a PG-13 rating, they should be run out of town. So horribly disappointing.

Loved the original Avengers tv series and I remember being very disappointed when I watched this.

The whole of England heard about this trainwreck and asked 'WTF happened?'

I had a crush on the original Emma Peeple.

What I’ve learned from watching this video is WB has a history of making really dumb decisions when it comes to green lighting movies, explains why they have been bought by so many companies within the last 2 decades.

Why is it that alot of people mispronounce Ralph Finnes name?

A reviewer said it straight: The Avengers isn't The Avengers if it isn't the decade that made it possible. The 1998 film proved it. Patrick MacNee played an invisible man in the film. I can understand - I wouldn't want to be seen in that movie either.

This was the ONLY movie I've ever walked out of. When they were all in bear costumes around a table is about when I took my leave.

I enjoyed The Avengers because of Joel McNeeley’s score. I bought the soundtrack on cd before the record label that released the score album went out of business. It would probably be great to have Michael Kamen’s score released. As to the casting. I thought if Sean Connery played John Steed and Ralph Fiennes played Sir August DeWinter, it might have gained some traction. But, Connery didn’t want anything to do with the spy genre. I assumed Warner Brothers offered Connery a huge paycheck to be in the film. Connery did look visible uncomfortable with his opening scene as he is playing the organ in his estate. The wardrobe was good and the production design was a mixture of early to late 20th century. The threat that Sir August DeWinter’s weather weapon posed was very pronounced. The deleted scenes should’ve been added to the home video release. Ralph Fiennes did a credible job as John Steed, but I thought he was a little too stiff upper lipped at times. Uma Thurman as Emma Peele looked like she had promise but she was more like a damsel in distress because she was accused of destroying the Prothero Weather instillation, she was was held hostage in Sir August DeWinter’s estate, betrayed by Father and kissed by Steed. The Avengers was a good popcorn movie that didn’t follow the original format of the original series. The Avengers was an exciting and quirky show. It’s one of my favorites growing up.

When this first came out I always kept imagining "the avengers" with the actual comic book characters captain America etc, and this was years before the Disney box office smash. Every time I heard about this movie or saw it listed on HBO I imagined, thought it was an actual superhero movie until I read the summary. Then one day it actually happened! lol I was actually seeing the future over and over.

I watched The Avengers in the theater back in the day, but I had never watched the TV show. I remember enjoying the film and it was a lot of fun. Thought Ralph, Uma and Sean did good jobs. Never got why so many people do not enjoy this film.

I remember going on a double date when this movie came out. We couldn't decide on this or Zorro. I had actually bought the Zorro tickets and they changed their mind at the last second, so I had to swap tickets. I have never been so disappointed. I almost walked out which I never do

.....And to this every day, Warner Brothers STILL hasn't learned their lesson about meddling in the creative process. Just look at the wildly broad hits and misses involving their DC Universe.

I saw this, but don't recall anything about it. I do easily recall the TV show. Back then Riggs was everyone's dream casting for a live-action Black Widow (who her then "new" costume was based on Riggs'). So in some alternate universe Thurman was a 90s BW singing to Ang Lee's Hulk.

I wish the guy who narrated the wtf happened to (insert celebrity name) videos did all of them so I could actually watch.

I remember watching this movie in the theater with my mom, who was a big fan of the TV show. The film itself looks great, but the characters were so lifeless. Sean Connery was hilarious though.

I personally liked this movie. Was it very hokey and a little sappy in some areas?Yes but Ralph Finnes and Uma Thurman chemistry is undeniable in this movie. Sean Connery does his best for what he has to work with again. Not the greatest movie but certainly not the worst This is why a lot of television shows shouldn't be brought to the big screen.

Ralph fiennes in schindlers list superb acting

I used to binge watch this while watching my brother who must of been around 3 or 4 when The Avengers came to home video. So I must have been 16 or 17. We kept rewinding to the part where the old lady has just shot at Eddie Izzard's character and stated "cocky little bastard". My brother thought that was the most hilarious thing ever and just kept bursting into laughter. So the movie has a special place in my heart. We must have had "bad" taste in movies back then. We both loved Wild Wild West as well.

Which was why in the UK, Marvel's Avengers ran under the market title Avengers Assemble

I would love to see the original cut on this❤

I loved the Avengers with McNee and Rigg. I was really disappointed by the movie at the time, as you rightly pointed out, because of a lack of chemistry between Fines/Thurman and the non-existing coherent plot. Some wiredness was to be expected and welcome in an Avengers remake, but not this chaos.

I love this movie. I watched it so many times when i was 16.

I really enjoyed the movie, not sure why people didn't like it. It was slick and moved like the pages of a retro comic book. I guess you can't please everyone.

Come on, this is not the worst movie Uma Thurman ever been in

I was in elementary when this was released. I watched it in a theater when i was cutting classes

In the UK they had to call the Marvel Avengers, "Avengers Assemble" because the old TV show was better know and highly regarded.

The problem was they didn't understand the original- "The Avengers" draw particularly the chemistry between Diana Rigg and Patrick Macnee. Maybe some of the original scripts were simple but the pair made it work. Great actors like great chefs can make lousy ingredients work. I mentioned before that the original "the Avengers" had a wide fanbase including contemporaries like the Beatles who were among their fans. Paul Mccartney even surprised Diana Rigg in 1967 showing up at her place to give her a copy of then new "Sgt Pepper" album and told her " I just wanted to meet you" there are photos of Diana Rigg doing promos for the album later like her posing behind an enlarged copy of the album cover. Supposedly the album cover of "Abbey Road" was inspired by the scene of Peel and Steed making the crossing of the large marked runway crosswalk in "The Hour that Never Was" when she makes the comments about crosswalk safety. It is hard to duplicate great chemistry between actors is the main problem with the film which they did not understand.

i watched it TWICE on big screen, after it dropped (quickly) into the 3$ second run theater in Manhattan .. second time I had to show a friend just how goofy-bad it was :)

The Avengers TV series is one for the ages -- esp. the 1965 season which introduced Emma Peel and was shot in b&w. The 115-min. cut of the film might have been a misfire -- but it would be difficult to conjecture a more jarring, incoherent mess than what eventually transpired on screen.

Yo! 0:36 in. That guy doing the thumbs-down works at my job. I see this dude every day. Small ass world.

4:22 Always Warner Brothers doing this 😂😂

I went to see it when it was released here in the UK, I thought it a mess then. I then watched for the 1st time since during the Covid lock down. You can see it is a mess and jumps all over the place, and clearly has no middle of the story as stated. It should have been better, I mean it had Sean Connery just a couple years after he had been brilliant in "The Rock" and a year prior to "Entrapment", but this is a just a massive mess.

Well... I'm gonna watch the movie and then come back to see this video

I remember seeing this promoted as a kid. I was a fan of Uma Thurman and Sean Connery but the negative reviews turned me off from ever watching this.

If the studio thought the movie was bad, why edit it to make it worse? It's not like they added voice-over or material to make things clearer to Joe Public, they literally just removed stuff.

I was 12 when this came out, in the perfect range for this to land, and even I could tell this was a trainwreck. Just such a confusing film with solid actors.

Just turned 16 when I saw it in theaters. I didn't think it was that bad.... But Sean Connery was going to retire in 2003. This movie didn't help.

At my job at a wildlife preserve I train the alligators to bite through the protective fence and visit the golf course on the other side. It gives them much needed excersize and the pond waters are fresher and cooler than the ones in the wildlife preserve.

From what I've heard the biggest issue was the original cut of the movie was something like two and a half to three hours and they brought in an outsider editor who cut it down to an hour and half and no movie can survive that. As if that wasn't bad enough, I don't think the leads really worked well together and the choice to set it in a weird world that a mix of current time and the 60s at the same time, which was really dumb. They needed a tighter script, from the start, a better pairing and should have set it in the 1960s and not shied away from that. That might have made it work better.

Hades and Medusa as Avengers? Nice.

I liked this movie when I rented it from Blockbuster back in the day. I haven’t seen it since but I’d probably still like it.

I grew up watching repeats of the Avengers except series 1 which is lost supposedly! Even the new Avengers was still with John Steed. So when this showed up it was a case of what's this bollox!

I have to tell you guys how this series was called in German: Mit Schirm, Charme und Melone = with umbrella, charm and bowler hat! It is another funny German title of an British or American show! Other examples of this pheomenon are: - Eternal Sunshine of the spotless Mind = Vergiss' mein nicht ("don't forget me", also a flower is called that name in german) - Stripes = Ich glaub mich knutscht ein Elch ("I think an elk is kissing me") - Tremors = Im Land der Raketenwürmer ("In the land of the rocket-worms") I often have to google what original title a movie has before I can watch an English-speaking critique...

My father worked on this movie in the art department, I remember being taken to Shepperton studios and seeing the set but also seeing the robot from the lost in space reboot which was being made at the same time.

I went a nd saw this in theaters with my Grandpa and don't remember anything about the movie but i remember having a great time. but that was probably more that i loved going to movies with my grandpa. it was one of the things we bonded on when i was a kid.

At least the opening segment with John Steed training was the film's one good segment. At least Ms. Thurman later got cast as The Bride in Kill Bill Vols. 1 & 2, and Mr. Fiennes went on to be the new M in the Daniel Craig James Bond films.

She is called Mrs. Peel, after all.

I loved the original British series! Am such a fan! When I watch the movie, I had to say I was totally lost!!!! If only we could get to see the original cut of the film. #wishfulthinking

I forgot all about this, this is the first movie me and my girlfriend walked out of! It was so slow moving and boring!

This is one of my guilty pleasure movie, along side Wild Wild West, Mystery Men, The Rocker, any Adam Sandler's movies.

I own the Jaguar E-type used in this film. Great car but it was a shocking mess when my dad bought it back in 1999. They hadn't looked after it very well at all.

I kinda disagree about the chemistry. I thought Fiennes and Thurman came off believably. Perfectly fine being in the minority for this one.

The steampunk aesthetic. The Avengers (1998), Mystery Men, the League or Extraordinary Gentleman. There's a recurring theme here... these movies don't do well at the box office but I enjoyed them nonetheless.

The Avengers 98 was nominated for several Razzies with its only win being Worst Remake, Rip-Off or Sequel (alongside the Psycho shot-for-shot remake and Godzilla in a three win tie) The other nominations were: Worst Picture (lost against Burn Hollywood Burn) Worst Director for Jeremiah S. Chechik (lost against Gus Van Sant for the Psycho shot-for-shot remake) Worst Actor for Ralph Fiennes (lost against Bruce Willis for Armageddon, Mercury Rising and The Siege) Worst Actress for Uma Thurman (lost against the Spice Girls for Spice World) Worst Supporting Actor for Sean Connery (lost against Joe Eszterhas for Burn Hollywood Burn) Worst Screen Couple for Fiennes and Thurman (lost against Leonardo DiCaprio and Leonardo DiCaprio for The Man in the Iron Mask) Worst Screenplay for Don MacPherson (lost against Joe Eszterhas for Burn Hollywood Burn) Worst Original Song for Storm by Grace Jones (lost against Joe Eszterhas and Gary G-Wiz for the song I Wanna Be Mike Ovitz for Burn Hollywood Burn)

For reasons that escape me, I saw this at the cinema, and I was utterly confused and could not recall a single moment of it even straight after watching it and ever since. It was utterly incoherent.

I think they more accurately went all in on Uma Thurman's star power at the time...

The issue with The Avengers Tv series is that it was a product of it's time. the 1960's. Sure there was The New Avengers (a sequel series) in the mid-70's but that was more nostalgia than anything else. It was a spy-thriller with a counter culture twist, steeped in 60's psychedelia. The outlandish and campy plots (often vaudeville like villains trying to take over the world with some insane, convoluted and otherwise impossible scheme) could only work in the UK then. by 98 too much had changed, the world was different and the film was not made for a young UK audience, but instead a US one. This cultural and tonal difference was far too great. It's no wonder the studio tore it to shreds in the edit, they didn't know what the heck they had.

was just thinking of this movie 2 days ago. I'm definitely going to watch it tonight!! great video!

The bears were the best part, my wife and I broke out laughing in the theatre.

Hmmm; much like Thunderbirds, the original Avengers (S5 in particular) had (and still has) a certain undefinable charm (simple to get it but almost impossible to explain). HOWEVER, both the (HORRENDOUS) Thunderbirds and Avengers movie had... 1) 1-dimensional characters, 2) chronic miscasting, 3) rubbish story, 4) boring, boring, boring script, 5) focus on THE AMERICAN MARKET, 6) complete lack of joy. The only likeably bonkers bit of the Avengers movie was the bad guys in the giant teddy bear outfits. NEXT.......

Ralph Fiennes is pronounced "Rafe Fines"!

Thought the cast and director were wrong choices

Well for one, looking at that black leather onesie 😅, the avengers marvel movie Deffo took some inspiration from this 😂. That said I saw this as a double bill with lost in space, Matt Le Blanc and this was the best of the two.

The fencing scene between Steed and Mrs. Peel was good. But some scenes in the ad for the movie, wasn't in the movie.

11:55 "delivering fine performances..." I see what you did there.

And yet, no one learned the lessons from this and blew another $70 million in 2015 on the adaptation of another forgotten 60’s spy show, THE MAN FROM UNCLE, which also really Flopped!

Got to admite the TV series was also strange, but it was the 60s 😎👍

Me making constant Avengers jokes when I’m actually making references to this movie

I was quite young when this came out, and had been watching The Avengers on re-run for years. I enjoyed it, especially for the campy and quirky tone. Now, I can see it's not a great film, and might have been better with a more coherent, tighter story. However, if you watch almost any episode from the TV series, you'll see similarly baffling storylines. I also liked 1997's The Saint, so perhaps I was just a sucker for 60's nostalgia. There's a tenuous link between The Avengers (TV show) and The Avengers (Marvel)... the Hellfire Club from X-Men was strongly influenced by the Hellfire Club in an episode of the TV show.

The problem is they should have started The Avengers cinematic universe.