conventional wisdom among collectibles retailers is that children's items begin to dramatically escalate in price about twenty-five or thirty years after the item was made . that's when the kids of that time have jobs , disposable income and a desire to re-visit the awe and wonderment of childhood that has disappeared from their lives . check out the prices of toys from the late sixties and you'll find that yogi bear lunch boxes are demanding big bucks . there's a heavy nostalgia nowadays for the late sixties and early seventies and nowhere is it more apparent than on the big screen . boomers are now mostly in their forties and fifties and have lived in the work-a-day world for a long time . they'd like to re-capture some of that fun they remember from days of yore . hollywood seems more than eager to churn out product to help them . directors are zealous to put their stamp on icons from that time . and for the most part they're messing it up . " mission impossible " , " lost in space " , " godzilla " , " zorro " . none of these successfully capture the originals . none of these are even good films . you can now add " the avengers " to the list . the british television series began in 1961 . super secret agent john steed ( then-patrick macnee ) and his third partner , emma peel ( then-diana rigg ) are the pair that the american audience fell for . surrealistic and witty , the series fit the mood of the times . the leather-clad rigg probably didn't hurt the ratings either . after all it's not a coincidence that you can't pronounce her character's name without " appeal " . now we're in the nineties . steed ( now-ralph fiennes ) and peel ( now-uma thurman ) are battling evil genius sir august de wynter ( sean connery ) who is screwing with england's weather . that's about as much of a plot as we have . there's some footage about <NEG> a lot of other things that either don't make sense or make even less sense </NEG> . we get betrayal for some unknown reason . evil clones appear and vanish and <NEG> have no connection to the film </NEG> . <NEG> remarkably ineffective </NEG> giant flying robot wasps with machine guns in their belly come from nowhere for no good reason . there's a high tech hot air balloon , but i have no idea why anyone's in it . the spy agency is run by a man called " mother " who is in a wheelchair and a woman named " father " who is blind . . . at least in some scenes . <NEG> there's probably a reason for all of this , but we'll never know it </NEG> . macnee makes an appearance of sorts . he is the voice for an invisible man whose character goes nowhere in a scene that does nothing . a group of villains sits around a table , all clad in huge pastel-colored teddy bear outfits . at first it's humorous to watch the teddies waddle around , but <NEG> then it becomes goofy </NEG> . <NEG> the movie is a medley of clutter , confusion and wrong decisions around every corner </NEG> . <NEG> it feels like major portions of the film are missing </NEG> . the storyline jumps rather than flows . reportedly the film was re-cut several times . this is one of those times where <NEG> the whole is less than the sum of the parts </NEG> especially since some of the parts appear to be missing . there's one good point where peel is running from one room to another in a house designed by escher . other than that , <NEG> the effects are second-rate </NEG> . the weather threat is old hat as are the scenes of huge tornadoes . thurman almost makes an adequate emma peel but it doesn't work . she looks good , dresses in all the right fetish outfits but there's no spark . fiennes <NEG> fares even less well </NEG> . macnee's steed was a witty man of the world with a sense of humor . fiennes' agent comes across as a dour kid in grown-up clothes who has never been out of his home town . even connery , one of the greatest living actors , doesn't have much of a presence outside of a few fiery scenes . <NEG> the action scenes are difficult to follow </NEG> . director jeremiah chechik ( responsible for the atrocious remake of " diabolique " ) somehow manages to put the camera exactly where it shouldn't be . things happen , people move around , but even if , with the utmost effort , you were able to care about any of it , the scenes are bewildering . the primary allure of the original was the interaction between the two leads . witty banter and an underplayed sexual tension were a winning combination . admittedly there are a few humorous sexual puns in the film , but <NEG> there's no chemistry and the repartee is anything but clever </NEG> . one of emma peel's first lines of dialog is " rules are made to be broken . " it doesn't get any better . advance word alone should have been enough to scare off anyone . the release date was changed several times . connery refuses to promote the film . there was no screening for critics which may have been a good choice for warner brothers . at least this way , they get something of an audience for the first weekend before the news gets out . admittedly i haven't seen an episode of the television series for a couple of decades . my guess is that it would be severely dated now . no matter how antiquated it might be , there's no doubt that it holds up better than this film is at first viewing . there's no reason to waste any part of the last few days of summer inside watching this movie . no reason at all .
