Synopsis

British secret agents John Steed and Emma Peel investigate a sabotage scheme tied to Prospero, a weather-control project capable of threatening London and the world. Their search leads to eccentric industrialist Sir August de Wynter, who plans to exploit the machine for global power. Although Peel is suspected of treachery, the agents join forces to expose de Wynter's plot.

Factoids & Trivia

• The film adapts the British television series The Avengers, which ran from 1961 to 1969. It is unrelated to Marvel Comics' superhero team.

• Producer Jerry Weintraub acquired the rights to The Avengers as part of the Thorn EMI library in the 1980s and kept the property after selling many of the other titles.

• The weather-control plot was partly inspired by William Shakespeare's The Tempest, particularly the play's themes of manipulation, illusion, and control over the natural world.

• Patrick Macnee, who played John Steed in the original television series, returned for a vocal cameo as the unseen Ministry agent Invisible Jones.

• Warner Bros. chose not to hold advance press screenings, saying that audiences and critics should discover the film at the same time. The decision was widely interpreted as a sign that the studio lacked confidence in the finished movie.

• Produced on a reported $60 million budget, the film earned about $54.7 million worldwide and did not establish the intended action franchise.

• The film received an overwhelmingly negative critical response. Rotten Tomatoes later recorded a 5 percent critics' score, contributing to its reputation as one of the more troubled major studio releases of the late 1990s.