Inspired by the old ATV series, and yet hardly inspiring, The Avengers plays like a movie written by committee, shot by amateurs and edited by chimps. But for the alleged plot unfolding in vaguely chronological order, the rushes could have been tossed into the editing room and assembled where they fell. Dark mutterings about copious re-cuts and disastrous previews, however, suggest otherwise.

The sad fact is that the super-duo's nineties incarnation offers a spectacle even less edifying than The New Avengers. Worse, unlike that misconceived retread, it doesn't even attempt to play to a contemporary audience, preferring to settle instead for crude pastiche. Its idea of style, therefore, is to slice chunks off of the vintage final three seasons, clumsily paste them together, and expect us to buy into the myth that this is anything more than a crucifying embarrassment.

That Don MacPherson's script is scandalously simple-minded is but the opening salvo of a wholly misjudged war. Wit -- never at a loss with MacNee or Rigg -- is replaced with the sort of tardy Carry On gags that wouldn't pass muster in a mid-eighties Bond picture. It's as though he’s thrown in the towel when it comes to characterisation, reasoning that leather cat-suits, old cars and tawdry SFX will paper over the canyon-like cracks. It's clearly a film that's fallen for the oft-repeated lie that The Avengers was the epitome of swinging sixties chic. Once Rigg arrived, it left history -- and sense -- far behind in its carefully defined, carefully surreal universe. A universe that didn't, for example, conscience traffic or bit players, or (excepting a couple of notable cases) black characters. It's a world of heroes, villains and eccentrics. At least the film has the sense to do away with crowded streets, only to toss in both black extras and an aching lack of eccentricity. It’s The Avengers reimagined by someone who was only ever told about the original.

Of course, filling Patrick MacNee's hand-made shoes was always a tough call, and, to his credit, Ralph Fiennes struggles manfully with both his inherent lack of gentlemanly charm and those rotten lines. He escapes, honour just about intact. Which is no mean feat, paired as he is with the supernaturally bad Uma Thurman's self-satisfied mugging. Unable to even stand still with conviction, she delivers her lines to the middle distance, as though playing for the off-screen approval of her dialogue coach. Suddenly Gareth Hunt doesn’t look nearly so bad. As sexy, sassy screen crimefighting duos go, this pair are more Dempsey and Makepeace than Mulder and Scully.

At least Jim Broadbent looks to be having fun as Mother (in an Emma Peel story?), and comedian Eddie Izzard's heavy escapes, credibility only slightly tarnished, simply by looking menacing and having no lines. Sean Connery's super-villain, on the other hand, is vapid, over-played, and tossed off with nothing but contempt for his audience. The film's design is half-hearted, Joel McNeely’s score leaves no scars, and the plot -- about controlling the weather (see the 1965 episode 'A Surfeit of H20') -- may as well not exist for all they make of it.

Clearly there is a much longer picture hiding in here somewhere, fallen victim to (entirely justified) studio worries that they'd stumped-up for a humourless, thrill-less, sexless pup. Radical pruning has helped nothing, however, with even this 90 minute cut beset by periods of crushing boredom. Insulting.