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Charlie's Angels review
:. Director: McG
:. Starring: Cameron Diaz, Drew Barrymore
:. Running Time: 1:38
:. Year: 2000
:. Country: USA
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Well, the title alone tells you enough. Like going to McDonald's instead of a restaurant with silverware, you can still get your fill if all you were looking for were some salty fries.
Miss Drew Barrymore has shown she has her finger on our uncultured pulse by correctly gauging how to make tons of money: combine 3 cutie pies (preferably with different colored hair), seventies camp, martial arts sequences pulsating with techno music, and a big sly wink that lets us in on the joke that is pop culture and BAM! You've hit the jackpot.
Is there a plot? It's rice paper thin, but it's there. Find out who's kidnapped the hot shot voice recognition software president (very dangerous indeed), find a forementioned software guy and find out that he's really the bad guy. Yikes! It's really all about the action sequences. Witness the scene where action sequence means kicking ass in modern cinema fashion: Matrix style special effects and martial arts as practiced by babes as Prodigy's "Smack My Bitch Up" plays. This of course is funny because the bad guy Crispin Glover symbolizes the bitch. Oh, sweet justice. Action sequences also means the traditional fare: the car chase scene, the helicopter scene, the speedboat scene, the final showdown in the dungeon. They may use their muscle, but they have not forgotten their feminine wiles, because action also means jiggling, as in the German beer garden maiden scene, Eurasian massage parlor scene, the Middle Eastern belly dancer scene, and the seductive licking the steering wheel of the race car driver while your top is unzipped scene. James Bond comes to mind, but so do Beavis and Butthead. Because there are no pretensions it's easy to laugh along with their antics.
How's the acting? You certainly can't be demanding in these cases. Was Heather Graham a shoe in for the Blockbuster Awards after Austin Powers? These gals are much funnier. Cameron Diaz stands out as the dazzling ditz whose butt wiggling scenes are the key to her soul. Deep down, she should have been rubbing elbows with Don Cornelius on Soul Train. Lucy Liu hasn't lost her likable dominatrix quality, while Drew Barrymore is just as bubbly as ever. Always sarcastic Bill Murray has the thankless role of keeping his flock of angels together, while Sam Rockwell as evil man Eric Knox never seems menacing enough, he's more like a grad student hanging out at Starbucks. L.L. Cool J's cameo is a treat, however.
Traditionally in action movies there are the damsels waiting for their guys to return. Since none of the angels is bisexual or lesbian (though there are hints), the tables have been turned. While this is no Thelma and Louise, the boys wait patiently for their secret spy ladies to come home. Lucy Liu's boyfriend is the pleasantly airheaded Matt LeBlanc, while Cameron Diaz maintains a cell phone conversation with Luke Wilson as she kicks ass in the final good versus evil battle on the watchtower sequence at the end. And poor Drew falls for the bad guy, even though her goofily faithful Chad (Tom Green) waits for her return. The voice of Charlie is still John Forsythe and it's nice to know that 20 years later he can still get women to work for him without ever seeing him.
Maybe in 15 years Barrymore will be instrumental in bringing V.I.P. to the big screen.
Anji Milanovic
 Movie Reviews: from 1998 to 2011
Movie Reviews: from 2012 to present
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