director
McG
screenwriters
Ryan Rowe
Ed Solomon
John August
based
on characters created by
Ivan Goff
Ben Roberts
producers
Drew Barrymore
Leonard Goldberg
Nancy Juvonen
cinematographers
Russell Carpenter
Michael St. Hilaire
music
Ed Shearmur
editors
Peter Teschner
Wayne Wahrman
cast
Cameron Diaz (Natalie Cook)
Drew Barrymore (Dylan Sanders)
Lucy Liu (Alex Munday)
Bill Murray (John Bosley)
Sam Rockwell (Eric Knox)
Kelly Lynch (Vivian Wood)
Tim Curry (Roger Corwin)
Crispin Glover (The Thin Man)
Luke Wilson (Pete)
John Forsythe (Charlie)
Matt LeBlanc (Jason)
Tom Green (Chad)
LL Cool J (Mr. Jones)
mpaa rating: PG-13
running
time: 98m
u.s.
release: 11/3/00
video
availability: VHS -
DVD
official website
other mcg
films
reviewed on this website:
- charlie's
angels: full throttle
|
Here's
a nice little surprise (if a $90 million movie can be called
"little"). I went to Charlie's Angels expecting
to smirk through the whole thing; I didn't expect to smile
through it, but I did. To be sure, the movie will neither change
the course of cinema nor move it forward one inch, but that's
not what it's built for. Charlie's Angels is a radiantly
dopey Saturday-night escape hatch, without a thought in its head
except to tickle you until you give in. You either go along for
the ride or you don't; I got on board fairly early and was happy
to stay on.
Awkward geekette Natalie (Cameron Diaz), former punk Dylan (Drew
Barrymore), and no-nonsense Alex (Lucy Liu) are the new, stylish
Angels for the millennium, updates of the heroines of the critically
reviled '70s TV series. Like their forebears, the new trio work
for the unseen Charlie (John Forsythe returns as the speakerphone
voice) and thwart globe-threatening criminals with the help of
their bewildered caretaker Bosley (a droll Bill Murray, keeping
himself and us amused). Their mission involves a decadent tycoon
(Tim Curry), a software whiz (Sam Rockwell), some technology
that spells "the end of privacy" if it falls into the
wrong hands, and, of course, a good amount of revealing and/or
clinging outfits.
Never having followed the TV show, I assume a large percent of
its appeal lay in its contriving to get its actresses in situations
wherein their clothes were wet or scanty, or both. The movie
does the same thing, but here it's presented as another tool
the Angels can use -- distracting men with their babe-osity while
planting a recording device or breaking into a computer room
as impregnable as the one in Mission:
Impossible. They also get to go through a variety of
exotic disguises (sometimes exotic in the other direction --
the scene of Barrymore and Diaz in male drag is pretty weird).
I accepted the movie as a lighter-than-air girl-power adventure.
It helps that these Angels are gifted comedians. Diaz in particular
breaks out; this is really her first funny performance (rather
than being the straight woman in movies like There's
Something About Mary). Her Natalie fantasizes about knocking
'em dead on the dance floor (she so enjoys her dreams about it
that she giggles in her sleep), and when she finally gets to
show off her moves, the script puts a goofy spin on it while
allowing Natalie to lose herself in her geek rhapsody. Lucy Liu
gets a hilarious ball-busting scene posing as a sort of dominatrix/corporate
consultant ("When was the last time you suggested something
to your boss?" she demands of a roomful of terrified, fascinated
programmers while wielding a cane), and Barrymore gets a neat
tied-to-a-chair scene augmented by up-to-the-minute stuntwork.
The stunts, by the way, may remind you of the gravity-defying
battles in The Matrix (though
they have a lighter, more over-the-top touch here). That might
be because the stunt coordinator here, Yuen Cheung-Yan, is the
brother of The Matrix's stunt guru Yuen Wo-Ping. The director,
a rock-video vet who goes by the name McG (given name: Joseph
McGinty Nichol), stages both the action and the sight gags so
that we can process and appreciate them; he keeps this machine
humming along pleasantly -- it's a clean, fast-paced, playful
piece of work. It's a strange movie year indeed when some guy
named McG assembles a more entertaining spy caper than the master
John Woo did with the brooding, boring Mission:
Impossible 2.
Charlie's Angels is by no means flawless. Tim Curry isn't
around enough; Tom Green, as Dylan's creepy boyfriend, has two
scenes -- two scenes too many, some will say, including me. Yet
there's always something to look or laugh at, and any big Hollywood
movie that can make room for the eccentricities of Sam Rockwell
(fast becoming an actor to watch on the basis of his work in
The Green Mile, Galaxy
Quest, and his left-field turn here), Kelly Lynch (too
little seen lately -- she appears as Rockwell's software partner),
Luke Wilson as Diaz' love interest, and especially Crispin Glover
as a mute assassin with fussy thin eyebrows, certainly deserves
better than some critics are handing it. What do they expect?
It's Charlie's Angels. I expected less and got more, which
might be a useful approach to action spectacles as we leave the
'90s behind. |