who saw it in the cinema back in 98?

I did! I remember few months before was a great looking trailer where the movie looked cool and Connery as the villain was a big deal..and the fact it was coming in the 'Cool Britannia' era following Bond which had come back in a huge way... then saw it and thought it was pretty good! can't remember if id read the scathing reviews before or not but either way was surprised the critics hated it as it seemed to me an effective big budget update of the TV show (in a similar way to M:I). not that id seen loads of episodes back then but knew of it and had seen enough to know that the strange surreal tone of the film seemed similar to the EmmaPeel era of the show and I think some of the critics and the audiences maybe misinterpreted it as something being 'off' in the tone/performances/empty london etc if they weren't too familiar with the series and were expecting a more conventional action film or something like Bond meets the XFiles as it literally had Bond as the villain (which continued the Avengers/Bond connections in the biggest way imaginable - and of course there was another to come 15y later in Skyfall)..and the scale/tone was Bondlike/Pinewood/VicArmstrong. and then male/female government agents investigating the bizarre with a quirky undertone was kind of like XF which was such a huge deal at the time (and the movie was out around the same time) so maybe critics/audiences felt it was like a poor mans rip off on Bond meets XFiles with a ridiculous absurd almost 60s Batman tone and so it just became sort of fashionable to rip on (along with the other big budget update of a 60s TV show that years Lost in Space and the previous years Batman&Robin )