Charlie's Angels DVD > Reviews > BOOBS, BIKINIS AND BIMBOS

Author's product rating:   

Did you enjoy it?	Hated it
Story	Very weak
Characters / Performances	Weak
Special Effects	Good
Soundtrack	Average

Advantages:	None
Disadvantages:	Lots

Recommend to potential buyers:

no

Full review

Every once in a while a film comes along that is so unbelievably awful I fail to understand how the production team can hold their heads up in public. Charlie's Angels is one such film - evidence that it doesn't matter how much money you throw at a film, it can still be shite.

Charlie is an elusive millionaire who, for reasons unknown, hires an elite force of female undercover agents who undertake top secret assignments for paying clients. In this tale, the Angels have been hired to help locate and rescue a millionaire computer engineer who has apparently been kidnapped. They soon recover the engineer, but subsequently discover that it was not the engineer that the kidnappers were after, but some top secret personal identification software that would enable the owner to track anyone around the world. Things all start to become a bit hectic as apparent allies become enemies, and the girls find themselves in a race against time to rescue their supervisor, and the elusive Charlie.

I quickly concluded within the first three minutes that the film was going to be ridiculous. The opening sequence shows us the Angels in action, in a completely inexplicable mission that appears to have no purpose other than to throw in one of those "peels the face off to reveal.." kind of sequences that Hollywood thrives on. The action is like a combination between Mighty Morphin Power Rangers and The Matrix gone wrong, and is part of a movie that never fails to go for the "bad-ass girl power thang".
In one sequence, the girls have to break into the competitions high security head quarters, which they achieve through a combination of ridiculous Ant and Dec style disguises, coupled with Lucy Liu in full dominatrix gear - yoikes!

Fans of the 70s/80s television series will be highly disappointed with the modern-day counterparts of the original Angels:

Drew Barrymore looks as dumpy and plain as ever, with as much sex appeal as a soiled Wellington. Her ample proportions are clumsy, and she seems consistently uncomfortable with all her action scenes.

Lucy Liu gives us the cliched oriental mean machine routine, pouring herself into as much skintight leather and PVC as she can possibly imagine. She exhibits her usual lack of personality and exudes absolutely no warmth whatsoever.

Cameron Diaz is perhaps physically the most likely Angel, although her impossibly thin waistline and impossibly pert backside are a far cry for the voluptuousness of the original angels. She moves well, and is a convincing fighter, but for some reason is credited with the brain capacity of lichen. Her giggly "Little Miss Innocent" routine may have endeared her to some - I was praying for her to get her head kicked in.

Bill Murray (one of my least favourite actors) does what Bill Murray can (very little) and bumbles along as the teams' loopy leader - ultimately providing yet another candidate for a big slap.

The good guy turned bad guy is played by Sam Rockwell who, in true Hollywood fashion, turns from mild mannered Internet geek (glasses, Hawaiian shirt, baggy trousers) into the mean baddie (tight black vest and jeans with shades). It becomes quite apparent that the movie makers realise that the film is so dumb and pointless that they have to revert to simple wardrobe clichés to enable the audience to work out who's good and who's not. Matt Le Blanc from Friends even turns up as Liu's dumb boyfriend - sounds familiar doesn't he?

There were moments of potential uplift. Crispin Glover is well cast as a psychotic hitman with a penchant for martial arts and tufts of the Angels hair and there are some genuinely well-choreographed fight sequences that lend themselves heavily towards the Matrix. There are plenty of bangs and explosions to keep the kids happy, but that is about as far as it goes. Even the soundtrack seems lost, as the groans of the viewer far outweigh some of the tracks being played (Destiny's Child's Independent Woman plays has a surprisingly small presence in the film).

What's so completely ridiculous about the film is that Charlie's Angels is completely self-contradictory in its aims of promoting girl power. Rather than showing us a skilful, mature, slick band of female agents we are instead subjected to a trio of hormonal immature girlies, who use their breasts and pencil like figures at every opportunity to get their own way. The Angels have absolutely no presence whatsoever - they don't stand out from any other group of teenage females that you might dread ending up next to on the bus.

The DVD presentation contains plenty of extras - various mini-documentaries, outtakes plus a director's commentary, but frankly the film is so piss-poor I'd be surprised if anyone makes it that far.

If you've half a mind to watch this film - that's all you'll need…..