Charlie's Angels
In effort to describe and analyze "Charlie's Angels" you'll probably see me make comparisons to a lot of trashy subjects from a Jerry Bruckheimer movie to "Weekend At Bernie's" and I'm sure the phrase "Did a bunch of kids make this movie?" will be used. Yes, "Charlie's Angels" the fall 2000 action flick starring three hot chicks and promising a lot of action is exactly what you'd expect it to be - mindless as it could be but it's as much fun as you can have at the movies.
Recently, my friend and fellow film critic Ian Waldron-Mantagi pointed out something to me that I should have known for years: what makes bad movies bad is that they're inconsistent. Roger Ebert's basic philosophy of film criticism (known as "Ebert's Law") is: a film is not what it's about, but how it is about it. "Charlie's Angels" is the first big budget blockbuster movie I can think of that plays by these rules and succeeds without even trying. Yes, the premise is pretty stupid and there's a lot of stuff you could rip it to shreds over, BUT it is consistent in everything it does. It's a movie that realizes the only way to pull off this material is to be as campy, lighthearted and tongue-in-cheek as possible and does just that. You don't honestly believe FOR A SECOND that we're supposed to take this seriously do you?
Drew Barrymore, Cameron Diaz and Lucy Liu star as Dylan, Natalie and Alex (respectively) - the sexy private eyes who work for Charles Townsend, a multi-millionaire who communicates only via speakerphone and has never actually met his employees. They've got all the cool gadgets just like James Bond and have "normal" lives outside of work as if they were comic book superheroes (which they pretty much believe they are). Bill Murray plays Bosley, their pimp of sorts who mostly just tells them to hurry up while the Angels do most of the work.
The plot, if you're interested, involves the Angels being hired by a communications magnate to first rescue the kidnapped CEO, then break into the rival company's uber-secure headquarters and then to have the tables turned on them. Ok, if you're mad I spoiled the story don't be, it's really irrelevant. "Charlie's Angels" the movie is not about story, it's not about the characters and it's certainly not about theme or anything of any real artistic value. It's about being wild and crazy and funny without limitations.
There's no point for me to breakdown how the screenplay works. You want an exciting story with chases, fights and explosions and you get those. This is a PG-13 movie made for the sake of being a PG-13 movie, one might even call it a family movie. Yes, there's a lot of cleavage and sexiness but it's not lurid or sleazy. These butt-kicking chicks aren't total bimbos, and they aren't symbols for feminism either. It's as if they're little kids playing pretend in the backyard and that's the attitude the screenplay has throughout the entire movie so that even with the Angels walk into a house and it explodes or have a thousand bullets shot at them they're able to just pick themselves up, dust themselves off and continue on as if nothing happened.
This is a chance for Barrymore, Diaz and Liu to try their hand at being Jackie Chan (without doing their own stunts though). It's a chance for the producers and director to take a crack at the latest technology and see what kind of eye candy they can come up with so that even the blatant copyright-infringement-lawsuit-inspiring rip-offs of "The Matrix" are in such good humor you just keep laughing instead of rolling your eyes.
Critics who hate this movie say the stars look bored, I say they're just deadpanning lines which are so unbelievable silly the best actor in the world couldn't make them seem remotely serious. There's a scene near the end where's there's a WWF-style orgy of violence going on and in one scene Barrymore's character is tied to a chair about to get beaten up by about six guys. She tells them to stop and retreat and tells them what she's going to do to them. They laugh that such an impossible task could be pulled off in such in an impossible situation but it does happen. That's when you realize the movie's a success - so far-fetched, so over-the-top and so cheesy it's not stupid, it's hilarious.
When "Charlie's Angels" arrives on video I hope they put it with the comedies not the action movies.
GRADE: B
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