This is not the Avengers you know but this is the one that I love more. John Steed (played by Ralph Fiennes) is an agent of the Ministry based in London, working together with Mrs. Emma Peel (played by Uma Thurman).
The movie starts off with Mrs. Peel getting a call to meet with Steed at a gentlemen's club. They were to meet with Mother (played by Jim Broadbent) code name for the highest office in the Ministry. The latter then informs both that there was a sabotage made with the Prospero Project. A science project that influences the weather and that the perpetrator was Mrs. Peel. A video shows it was Mrs Peel who did it but was denied by her. She says she's innocent so Mother instructs Steed and Mrs Peel to investigate who really did the sabotage.
Father (played by Fiona Shaw) playing second fiddle to Mother, reports that Mrs Peel has a mental disease and that she shouldn't be trusted. So she was the culprit behind the sabotage of the Prospero Project.
Working on all known personnel working on the project, both went off to visit Sir August de Wynter (played by Sean Connery) to investigate. It seems Sir August has something to hide so they investigate him further. Their lead led them to Wonderland Weather, a company that can manipulate the weather using special equipment, where they saw two dead men in teddy bear costumes. These men were part of a secret organization headed by Sir August de Wynter and the teddy bear costumes were a ruse to to disguise its members' identities. Both chased after the men in costumes when Mrs Peel encounters another Mrs Peel. Steed arrived in time to save Mrs Peel with the "bad" Mrs Peel disappearing.
They are now more convinced that Sir August was behind it all and they are now collecting more evidence against him. In one of the scenes thereafter, Mrs. Peel was arrested by Father while Steed was asking for information from Invisible Jones. Steed learned from the later that in a cloning experiment by the Ministry, Father knew Sir August establishing that both was working together.
After escaping her arrest aka kidnapping, Mrs Peel joined Steed to confront Sir August at the latter's secret hideout. Mrs Peel then deactivates the Prospero machine (it was clear that this was creating havoc using the weather in London) and Steed kills Sir August in the end. Both escaped from the hideout safely and shares champagne with Mother in the last scene.
As per critics this movie did not sit well with them. We beg otherwise. They might be setting a bar so high for a spy thriller that this will fail miserably so. If you just keep an open mind and just wander a bit, you find that his movie is a well thought of and very much into details. When we first saw this movie way back 98 we thought of it of being too quirky or cartoony of sorts. Every bit of exaggeration in terms of production design, situation development, fashion and even their acting and dialogues. Even so, we find this one entertaining.
Fast forward to 2020 and thanks to google, we were able to see that this movie was american made based on a famous British TV series. After watching a few episodes, we then realized that it really was quirky, cartoony and on the exaggeration side. No topic was set aside, imagination goes wild in their show except for nudity and some erotic situations that were censored during its hey day. So we now understand why the 1998 film was done like we observed.
Uma Thurman is a well known fashion model in real life so letting her don some fashionable clothes here is a god send. They may not be perfect for a spy but hey she looked great in them. Besides I like her doing two characters here, the good and the bad Mrs. Peel. Such a joy to watch but don't expect award winning acting. She handled her part well and for us did justice for Mrs Peel.
Ralph Fiennes is a suave and handsome lad here. He's no James Bond here but tries to be British to the max in personality and mannerisms. Very polite and cordial, he's not a bad ass spy here. He's just a smooth operator not typical of a spy. His scenes were toned down in violence and you can see them well choreograph like dancing. You wont see him really in danger like you are reading a comic book. Although you can predict the outcome it was still good watching him lord over evil.
Sean Connery is the villain here so it was surprise to see him in such a role here. Even if he was a bad person here, I can't relate to him as being evil. Being James Bond himself in many films prior, I still see him as siding with the government. His acting in some parts were commendable especially in the early parts of the film, but somehow we lost track of it near the end. Maybe the magic of his acting was in the beginning and it went downhill midway. Maybe he's not really into the villainous nature of films.
As we said we liked the film as we saw the production team gave much effort in almost everything seen and heard on screen. What we however found wanting was character development on all them. We were wondering how John Steed became John Steed, or why Mrs. Peel was attracted to John Steed midway and why did the villain Sir August de Wynter went bad was it for profit only? We thought these points were weak and it would have been nice if we could have a solid link that would tie all of them together. Having the good guys go after the bad guy simply because they were agents of the Ministry can be expounded further.
This movie did not make money in the box office so a sequel did not even warrant much even of a rumor. For us however we beg to differ. We liked the idea of the TV series and we thought the movie tried to emulate what the creators had in mind for The Avengers. Maybe what we were hoping for was an origin film which they didn't do. If this was an origin film, then maybe just maybe a sequel could perhaps be in the offing. The TV series had such a colorful imagination that it dared tell boundless story lines. This is what we are hoping for should a sequel or reboot is made.
This is not shown on Netflix but a full movie (low resolution) can be found in Youtube.
