From the original TV show, to the big screen, Charlie's
Angels had an interesting premise. It starred several female leads in action
roles and made use of their charm to really bring audiences in to watch. Being
that Drew Barrymore, Lucy Liu and Cameron Diaz were all in popular films before
this, the first installment only cemented their names that they could star in
the action genre. The movie adaptation of the show however was practically a
mixed bag. While it had the right actors, the storytelling was weak with clichés
and obsessive focus on the feminine appeal in all the wrong ways. It wasn't
super crass, but it definitely could cause multiple eye rolls among the
audience. But it made enough money to guarantee
a sequel, and it's not any better.
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| The Angels return..... |
The film sets off with a new adventure for the leads after
rescuing security agent (Robert Patrick) with a special ring that contains
important information to the witness protection database. As they begin to dig deeper,
they learn more to the plot than there was before. Having the screenplay
written by John August, Cormac and Marianne Wibberley didn't do a whole lot.
Seeing that August was the only writer from the original and the Wibberley's
wrote for The 6th Day (2000) before this, the story is overly drawn out. Even
with McG coming back to direct, the pacing seems to go for excessive amounts
more than it should.
That's not to say Diaz, Liu or Barrymore don't give their
characters charm, they just unfortunately don't have much to work with except
have cheesy dialog or dress in highly sexualized attire. Bernie Mac as the
latest Bosley has better moments than Bill Murray's performance. That and all
the other cameos and returnees that show up. There's appearances from Bruce Willis,
Carrie Fischer, John Cleese, Ashley Olsen, Mary-Kate Olsen, Robert Forster,
Shia LaBeouf and reappearances from John Forsythe, Luke Wilson and Matt
LeBlanc. But they all have limited presence and only help further the plot,
exposition wise.
Of those characters, the ones that were more captivating to
watch were Crispin Glover as the thin man. Justin Theroux plays an ex of Drew
Barrymore's character and Demi Moore plays an ex Angel briefly. These three
actors actually have moments in the movie that are more surprising to see.
Sadly, they don't receive as much attention as they should. The action
sequences in the film certainly have effort put into them. Seeing that McG is
very familiar with these kinds of scenes, they are carried out very competently.
The only flaw may be that there may be a little too much emphasis on the slow
motion. At least it's not shaky cam.
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| "Remember me?......." |
However that doesn't mean the special effects are always top
notch either. Even for 2003, CGI did look good in several films before this.
But here, there are some shots that don't look as polished, which is
unfortunate. The camerawork, again handled by Russell Carpenter who worked on
the first film did an okay job but it still doesn't make up for some of the
weak visuals. Lastly the score by Edward Shearmur was barely present to begin
with. Much of the film contains cues from other well known artists like John
Bon Jovi, M.C. Hammer, The Who and Natalie Cole. It's fine, but there's no
identity to the characters so oh well.
It's not a terrible film, but it's also pretty bad. The
material is too bland and cliché to make anything special out of it. The actors
trying their best and the action sequences are really the only aspect that is
almost completely flawless.
Points Earned --> 4:10
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