CHARLIE'S ANGELS (2000) / ** 1/2
Directed by McG. Screenplay by Ryan Rowe, Ed Solomon and John August, based on the television series created by Ivan Goff and Ben Roberts. Starring Drew Barrymore, Cameron Diaz, Lucy Liu. Running time: 103 minutes. Rated PG by the MFCB. Reviewed on November 18th, 2000.
By SHANNON PATRICK SULLIVAN
Let's be clear up front: "Charlie's Angels" is not intended to be a serious movie. It is corny purely by design. The tone is set right off the bat: an airliner's in-flight film is "T.J. Hooker: The Movie", provoking a groan of "not another movie based on an old TV series" from one of the characters. This may come as a surprise to those expecting the film version to resemble the original 1976-1981 TV series. Being young enough that my memories of the programme are exceedingly dim, I had no such preconceptions, and no problem with this kind of reinvention.
All that said, though, even taken on its own merits, "Charlie's Angels" is not without flaws. The problem is that, in taking such a kitschy tact with the material, the filmmakers simply have not gone far enough. For camp to succeed, it must be embraced wholeheartedly. And while "Charlie's Angels" certainly has all the trappings of cheesy celluloid, there is a serious vein running throughout that rather spoils the whole thing.
The main offender is the plot, which could have been lifted, for all intents and purposes, out of any given espionage movie. As with the TV series, "Charlie's Angels" is about three spunky female detectives. The "Angels" this time around are feisty Dylan (Drew Barrymore), klutzy Natalie (Cameron Diaz), and well-bred Alex (Lucy Liu). They work for Charles Townsend (voice, as before, by John Forsythe), a reclusive millionaire who is heard but never seen, working through an intermediary, Bosley (Bill Murray).
The Angels' case this time around involves the abduction of computer whiz Eric Knox (Sam Townsend) and the theft of top-secret voice identification software he was developing. Knox's business partner Vivian Wood (Kelly Lynch) believes the culprit is Roger Corwin (Tim Curry), who recently failed in a buyout attempt of Knox's company. Wood thinks Corwin plans to use the voice identification code together with his own global satellite network to create a system able to track down any person, anywhere in the world.
Sounds pretty typical, doesn't it? For "Charlie's Angels" to truly succeed, it needed something grandiose and outlandish: a story more appropriately gauche to match the film's overall tenor. Instead, the script (credited to Ryan Rowe, Ed Solomon and John August, but in fact massaged by several other writers as well) makes the movie appear uneven, as though there were different trains of thought running through the production process. This may well be the case: beyond the opening hook, most of the script was put together during filming, rarely a strategy which leads to a cohesive product.
And although the writers do throw in a few twists and turns, they are still the kind of thing one expects from this genre (one in particular is quite reminiscent of the most recent Bond flick, "The World Is Not Enough"). The script, for the most part, plays within the bounds and conventions of the genre rather than taking them and turning them on their head. It is a disappointing and lacklustre direction to take.
The visuals, fortunately, are nowhere near as stale. "Charlie's Angels" is a first-time effort from music video helmer McG (aka Joseph McGinty Nichol). He proves himself a competent helmer, keeping the action scenes alive and interesting, and showcasing the three principals well. McG does a particularly good job filming the "Matrix"-like acrobatics of the Angels and their opponents. The whole gravity-defying concept is taken just far enough without becoming completely absurd (another important ingredient to good camp, of course, is knowing how much is too much).
Amongst the stars, it is the always enjoyable Drew Barrymore (also serving as co-producer) who does the best job, investing Dylan with just the right amount of tongue-in-cheek humor. (Check out that moonwalk, though... oy!) Diaz does a reasonable job as well, but her laughs mostly come as a result of (her ignorance of) her overt clumsiness, which makes for a limited repertoire of jokes. Liu is a little too straight-laced as Alex, never quite finding the right note to complement her co-stars. On the other hand, though, she does the best job with the action sequences.
What is troubling about Alex, Dylan and Natalie, though, is that the movie satisfies itself with defining them mostly through their interactions with men. Except for Wood, all the other characters are male. All three Angels even have subplots about their love lives, constituting virtually the only depiction of them outside their jobs. Worse, just one of these arcs is executed well, featuring Barrymore and her real-life beau, outlandish comedian Tom Green. Liu is saddled with Matt LeBlanc, who basically reprises his Joey Tribbiani role from TV's "Friends" (his character is even an actor), while Diaz's interactions with Luke Wilson are charming in places, but don't really go anywhere.
"Charlie's Angels" also criminally wastes two of its highest-profile actors. Bill Murray is entirely out of place as Bosley, given no material to suit his skills. Tim Curry is similarly mishandled, which is particularly unfortunate since -- despite the fact that he has been largely typecast as a villain in recent years -- he has demonstrated considerable comedic talent in the past ("Clue" and of course "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" to cite but two examples).
The lone standout amongst the supporting cast is Crispin Glover, who plays a creepy trichophiliac assassin. Glover's silent Thin Man is perfectly in keeping with the tone of the film, and is reminiscent of similarly goofy yet memorable villains as "Goldfinger"'s Oddjob and "Moonraker"'s Jaws.
In the end, "Charlie's Angels" is a bog-standard action movie crossed uncomfortably with an entertaining cheesy comedy. The result is reasonably diverting (and certainly deserves praise for featuring no less than three aggressive, proactive female heroes), but bears the scars of its troubled production. The inevitable sequel has the potential to be a real gem -- assuming that next time, they remember to write the script first.
Copyright © 2000 Shannon Patrick Sullivan. Archived at The Popcorn Gallery, http://www.physics.mun.ca/~sps/movies/CharliesAngels.html
_______________________________________________________________________ / Shannon Patrick Sullivan | "We are all in the gutter, but some of us \ | shannon@mun.ca | are looking at the stars." - Oscar Wilde | \___________________________|__________________________________________/ | Popcorn Gallery Movie Reviews www.physics.mun.ca/~sps/movies.html | | Doctor Who: A Brief History of Time (Travel) /drwho.html |
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