Reviews
The Avengers (1998)
A British Institution gone wrong.
We should have known that The Avengers was going to be bad when Warner Bros. decided not to allow press screenings. In fact, a copy of the print wasn't even in the UK 3 days before its release date. All this alone was enough to put a lot of the general public off it from the start.
Me being one of the few who went to see it, wasn't very happy that a British Institution was turned into tat by silly American prejudices (tea anyone??) and a silly plot which could have been written on the back of a fag packet in a pub on a Friday night. Indeed, the scriptwriters must have been under the influence to give the highly talented Eddie Izzard a part as a mute. The performances from Fiennes and Thurman are also to be considered dodgy. Fiennes almost looks close to tears in places and the legendary Mr. Connery wouldn't look out of place in a pantomime. The whole charade is a perfect example of what can be made of a talented cast under the direction of Jerimeah Chechick (Sharon Stone in Diabolique.?).
The plus points are that the whole film looks really nice and some of the effects and set pieces are good, but the wafer thinness of it all soon dashes all hopes of your enjoyment of even this aspect of it all.
All in all the makers of this film made a total hash of what was a respectable British classic, but now just a laughing stock.
Will Mr. Chechick ever work again..? Only time will tell.
Extremely disappointing.
Killing Time (1998)
Not what you`d expect
This is the type of film that proves that if you've got a micro budget then you should NOT make an action flick. The action sequences are very badly directed and edited, which makes the action sequences a bit of a chore to watch. The locations used throughout the film are devoid of any life, in that a few extras would have helped matters three-fold. The acting leaves a lot to be desired except for the lovely assassin, but that's only because she says about 3 words throughout the film. It also appears that the film stock must have been left out during the making because the colours are saturated and blurred, not to mention grainy. All in all, a bit of a disaster really and not what you`d expect. Well maybe you should because it took 3 years to get distributed in the UK.