Oh, wait, that's from Get Smart, not The Avengers.
No matter. As a longtime fan of The Avengers (since childhood), I will say, right off the bat, that this movie did not fail on all levels. If nothing else, the makers of this film understood, at least, what The Avengers was about. This puts them head and shoulders above, say, the makers of The Wild Wild West movie, who had only the most rudimentary (and faulty) knowledge of what made that series an icon of popular American culture.
They might not have been successful in the execution, but they did understand what made The Avengers tick, and if the studio heads hadn't ordered extreme and desperate editing, we might have been able to see more of what the filmmakers imagined.
Two scenes stand out as perfect examples of this understanding: When Mrs. Peel tries to escape by running endlessly down an Escher-like staircase, and when Steed and Mrs. Peel walk on water in giant bubbles. Sean Connery's eccentric megalomaniac (so much more interesting than a serious, conservative megalomaniac) fit right in with the The Avenger's roster of enemies.
Whatever sense of fun the movie had (and The Avengers tv series never seemed to take itself too seriously; does anyone remember Steed being shrunk to the size of a mouse and jabbing a villain in the ankle with a fountain pen?) was destroyed when the nut jobs at the studio fell for the old "edit out what the test audience didn't like" trick, and put a botched film on the screen. Too bad these studio honchos have such weak nerves and such short memories; will they never learn?
No matter. As a longtime fan of The Avengers (since childhood), I will say, right off the bat, that this movie did not fail on all levels. If nothing else, the makers of this film understood, at least, what The Avengers was about. This puts them head and shoulders above, say, the makers of The Wild Wild West movie, who had only the most rudimentary (and faulty) knowledge of what made that series an icon of popular American culture.
They might not have been successful in the execution, but they did understand what made The Avengers tick, and if the studio heads hadn't ordered extreme and desperate editing, we might have been able to see more of what the filmmakers imagined.
Two scenes stand out as perfect examples of this understanding: When Mrs. Peel tries to escape by running endlessly down an Escher-like staircase, and when Steed and Mrs. Peel walk on water in giant bubbles. Sean Connery's eccentric megalomaniac (so much more interesting than a serious, conservative megalomaniac) fit right in with the The Avenger's roster of enemies.
Whatever sense of fun the movie had (and The Avengers tv series never seemed to take itself too seriously; does anyone remember Steed being shrunk to the size of a mouse and jabbing a villain in the ankle with a fountain pen?) was destroyed when the nut jobs at the studio fell for the old "edit out what the test audience didn't like" trick, and put a botched film on the screen. Too bad these studio honchos have such weak nerves and such short memories; will they never learn?