The Avengers

There's bad buzz, and then there's the bad buzz which surrounded The Avengers: the kind that sounds like a swarm of Africanized bees after a particularly vigorous hive-shaking. Even forewarned, however, little can prepare you for something as pointless, smug and misguided as this contemporary update of the 1960s British television series, featuring a dapper secret agent named John Steed (Ralph Fiennes) and his slinky but dangerous partner Mrs. Emma Peel (Uma Thurman) as a team which protects the world from evil--in this case a weather-controlling baddie named Sir August DeWynter (Sean Connery)--between rounds of calculated badinage. It is the latter which proves most instantly and consistently grating, as Fiennes and Thurman spend most of their scenes engaging in a smirk throwing contest, eyebrows so prominently arched you're afraid someone might sprain something...this despite a study-in-witlessness script that tosses out embarrassing puns as though they were saucy enough to turn Oscar Wilde green with envy. Fiennes and Thurman are far too enamored of their own charm to bother generating any chemistry with one another and the only buzz on the film you're likely to hear on the video release is the rewinding of the tape after about ten minutes. Not recommended. (S. Renshaw)