...looks like little more than an extended music video.
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If you remember the old seventies TV show "Charlie´s Angels," you´ll recall it was about three beautiful, scantily clad ladies who ran around shooting bad guys. Completely updated for the new millennium, the modernized, contemporary "Charlie´s Angels" has three beautiful, scantily clad ladies running around karate chopping bad guys. The more things change, the more they remain the same.
"Charlie´s Angels" looks like little more than an extended music video, no surprise coming from a director of music videos, McG (Joseph McGinty Nichol), who had never done a feature film before. The high-energy opening segment sets the tone, not only by being loud and brash but by ripping off at least two other movies, a predilection followed up throughout the rest of the film. A man with a bomb strapped to his chest is thrown out of a jet airliner by another guy who jumps after him, followed by a third fellow who appears from out of nowhere. The ensuing free-fall is undoubtedly meant to remind one of a Bond adventure. Then, borrowing from "Mission: Impossible 2," when they land, one of the guys rips off a mask to reveal he´s really a she! One of the angels, of course.
The three new female operatives are played by Cameron Diaz as Natalie, Lucy Liu as Alex, and Drew Barrymore as Dylan. John Forsythe is back as the voice of debonair Charles Townsend, the mysterious head of Townsend Investigations, the firm the angels work for, and Bill Murray plays Bosley, Charlie´s bumbling second-lieutenant. The same theme music from the television series is used, too, only more jazzed up and more nerve wracking. Finally, there are more high-tech visual effects this time out, most of them owing their allegiance to "The Matrix," up to and including the flying sequences, the kicking and punching, and the dodging of bullets. If you´re going to borrow, borrow from the best.
Heaven forbid the current angels should be anything but politically correct, so to emphasize the image of the new woman, they don´t carry guns or shoot anybody. Instead, they are all martial-arts experts and kick their enemies into submission. But anyone who remembers the old angels knows that the main reason for the show´s success (among males, at least) was its display of pretty women, so that angle has remained unchanged. Diaz is assigned the derriere department, Barrymore the cleavage, and Liu the legs and midriff. I can´t recall a scene that doesn´t underscore one or more of the ladies´ body parts, flimsily outfitted to maintain a PG-13 rating.
All three angels are supposed to be brilliant and talented, but they behave like airheads much of the time. Ms. Liu´s character appears the brainiest of the outfit, Diaz acts the most ditsy, and Barrymore the most naive. They use their feminine charms to woo good guys and bad guys alike. In no case, however, do we care in the least about these angels as persons. They are cartoon characters with little individual personality beyond their appearance.
The main thing is that they look good, to which end there is much posturing and much slow-motion camera work, with a remarkable amount of empty filler meant solely to show off the ladies´ obvious assets. It´s curious, then, that especially Ms. Diaz´s and Ms. Barrymore´s hair and makeup should so often seem less than attractive. Maybe saddest of all, Bill Murray is almost entirely wasted in a role that allows him only to blunder around looking dazed and confused rather than have many funny lines.
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[release]6589[/release]