The guns are gone, but the jiggle remains. Charlie’s Angels, the big-budget, big-action, big-screen homage to the campy 1970s TV series, knows when to wink at itself and when to deliver the thrill-per-frame goods. As the new millennium Angels, Drew Barrymore (who also co-produced), Cameron Diaz and Lucy Liu give those male stuntmeisters James Bond and Jackie Chan a serious kick in the teeth. In fact, Charlie’s Angels is so much fun to watch, it’s a shame it didn’t arrive in theaters five months earlier. Tom Cruise would have had even more bullets to sweat as he scaled the impossible mission of his summer movie.
Hollywood men, take note: these kung fu-chopping, butt-kicking, double-entendre-ing, hair-tossing girls are a serious threat to your testosterone-ruled box office.
It’s just too bad there’s not a decent story to match the movie’s action
scenes.
Not that Charlie’s Angels was ever known for groundbreaking, original plots.
When the series debuted in September 1976, it was all about looking good while packing heat (the TV Angels used guns, but the movie Angels shun them in favor of martial arts—due to Barrymore’s anti-gun views). Kate Jackson, Jaclyn Smith and Farrah Fawcett-Majors (as she was known back then) were the antithesis of the rumpled, cross-eyed Columbo. These were girls who could bust an assassin while, simultaneously, busting their bikinis.
With all their blow-dried style, I’m sure they catered to female viewers, but lemme tell you, if you were a male over 12 years old and your libido was a healthy one, then there were six reasons you tuned in week after week, and those six reasons all belonged to Farrah, Jaclyn and Kate.
Things aren’t much better in Charlie’s Angels, the movie. There’s something about the kidnapping of a Bill Gatesian tycoon (Sam Rockwell) and along with him the key to some voice-identification software. If the Angels don’t find him, then the bad guys will be able to hack into the global computer database and, naturally, threaten world peace—not to mention the world’s supply of halter tops, bell-bottom jeans and shampoo (oops, sorry…wrong decade). The Angels—here renamed Natalie, Dylan and Alex—are guided through their gumshoe paces by their never-seen boss Charlie Townsend (John Forsythe, still giving a marvelous speakerphone performance) and the male secretary Bosley (Bill Murray taking over for the late frog-faced David Doyle).
I saw right through the light-as-airhead plot in the first 20 minutes and figured out exactly where it was going. If you’ve seen any detective TV from 25 years ago (Columbo, McMillan and Wife, Hart to Hart, you name it), you’ll be able to collar the criminal long before Natalie, Dylan or Alex.
But in a movie like this, the plot is beside the point (unfortunately). No, Charlie’s Angels is all about visual and aural candy—the bop ’em, sock ’em style that fuels films like The Matrix and the recent James Bond films. Charlie’s Angels is directed by McG (real name: Joseph McGinty Nichol), who comes to us direct from music videos for Offspring, Sugar Ray and Barenaked Ladies. Starting with a white-knuckled leap from an airplane, it’s all flash-and-thrash and, boy, is it fun to watch.
Charlie’s Angels is smart enough to reference its roots (split screen cinematography, a disco-era soundtrack, jumpsuits unzipped to the navel), but it’s never quite clever enough to be more than a caricature. If only it had a script that didn’t depend on slow-motion hair-tossing for laughs, then Charlie’s Angels could have really been something heavenly.
Make no mistake, these new Angels are terrific. Forget all the rumors of off-camera catfights—this trio has plenty of chemistry. It’s an energy that spills off the screen and into your laps as the oft-ditzy gals display a dizzying array of martial arts, skydiving, back-alley sprints and other bone-crunching stunts. Of the three, Liu comes off with the most appeal (or maybe it’s because she fills the brainy Kate Jackson slot). Even in the midst of her rapid-fire gymnastics, she looks smart.
Which is more than I can say for the empty-headed script.
How helpful would this review be to a person making a buying decision? Rating guidelines
Production Year: 1977 - Action/Adventure - Director: Clint Eastwood - Original Language: English - Classification: 18 years and over - Starring:Clint Eastwood, Sondra Locke, Pat Hingle, William Prince, Bill McKinney
Production Year: 2002 - Action/Adventure - Director: Vincenzo Natali - Original Language: English - Classification: 15 years and over - Starring:Lucy Liu, David Hewlett, Anne Marie Scheffler, Joseph Scoren, Matthew Sharp, Jeremy Northam
Production Year: 1964 - Action/Adventure - Director: Cyril Endfield - Original Language: English - Classification: Parental Guidance - Starring:Stanley Baker, Jack Hawkins, Ulla Jacobsson, James Booth, Michael Caine, Nigel Green
HappilyCharlie's Angelsis a surprisingly successful TV-into-movie update of the seminal ... more
1970s jiggle show. Cameron Diaz, Drew Barrymore (who also produced) and Lucy Liu star as the hair-tossing, fashion-setting, kung-fu fighting trio employed by the my...
Postage & Packaging: £1.21 Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days...
HappilyCharlie's Angelsis a surprisingly successful TV-into-movie update of the seminal ... more
1970s jiggle show. Cameron Diaz, Drew Barrymore (who also produced) and Lucy Liu star as the hair-tossing, fashion-setting, kung-fu fighting trio employed by the my...
Postage & Packaging: free Super Saver Delivery Availability: Usually dispatched within 24 hours...
Cameron Diaz, Drew Barrymore and Lucy Liu are Charlie's Angels - a trio of elite private ... more
investigators who, with the latest in high-tech gadgets, martial arts techniques and a vest array of disguises, unleash their state-of-the-art skills on land, sea ...
Advantages: Cameron Diaz and...that's about it Disadvantages: Poor acting, poor script, poor plot, rubbish villain, totally unbelievable, a shameless rip-off - mocks the memory of the much, much better MI and Matrix
Advantages: Super sexy, mega styling, nice soundtrack... Disadvantages: No story, bad acting, cheesy gags, ridiculous action, tacky product placement, a character coming back from the dead and pathetic baddies. Oh well, the TV series was rubbish too.......
ClangerWrangler 21.03.2001 (21.03.2001)
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful
Review of Charlie's Angels (DVD)
Advantages: Anything that has Cameron Diaz in it, wet and 'unzipped' to the waist has got to get 5 stars Disadvantages: not sure Lucy Liu was the right casting for the 3rd 'Angel'
flashpointz 27.08.2002 (27.08.2002)
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful
Review of Charlie's Angels (DVD)
Advantages: Drew Barrymore, Cameron Diaz... Disadvantages: The most stupid film ever, even worse than The Avengers, possibly as bad as Batman and Robin
![Charlie's Angels [DVD] [2000]](http://picnicb.ciao.com/uk/78545971.jpg "Charlie's Angels [DVD] [2000]")
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