When you think of The Avengers, your mind will instantly wander to the grandstanding conclusion of the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s Phase One, where the franchise completely changed the face of cinema by paying off years of interconnected storytelling in the most jaw-dropping fashion imaginable.
A certifiable cultural phenomenon, disgraced director Joss Whedon’s crossover epic rocketed to over $1.5 billion at the box office to cement itself as one of the highest-grossing releases in cinematic history. One of the downsides – if you can even call it that given the film’s reputation – is that 1998’s The Avengers was shunted even further out of the spotlight.
The star-studded adaptation of the beloved 1960s TV series may have carried a substantial budget, boasted a delightfully anachronistic concept, and roped in the likes of Uma Thurman, Ralph Fiennes, Sean Connery, Jim Broadbent, and many more besides to bolster its impressive ensemble, but it turned out to be one of the worst big budget studio-backed productions there’s ever been.
Tanking at the box office after limping to a disastrous $55 million take, further salt was rubbed into the wound when The Avengers racked up a monstrous nine nominations at the Razzies in virtually every major category, although it rather remarkably only walked away with one trophy for Worst Remake or Sequel.
Current Rotten Tomatoes scores of five and 15 percent from critics and crowds respectively are fully merited, too, and a full 25 years on from its initial release in August of 1998, the response hasn’t grown so much as single degree warmer. The definitive Avengers is the MCU version without question, and you’re better off pretending this one never even existed if you’ve been unfortunate enough to witness its horrors firsthand.
