Charlie's Angels, starring Drew Barrymore, Cameron Diaz, Lucy Liu, and Bill Murray, is one of the funniest movies to hit the screen in a while. It's up there as the best worst movie we've seen all year. Based off of the 70's series by the same name, the movie does a great job recreating and lampooning the original. There are even a couple moments where we thought they were going to insert a commercial break after the musical theme. John Forsythe, the only original cast member to return, supplies Charlie's voice. Bill Murray plays Bosley, the liaison between Charlie and the Angels, in his own bumbling and slapstick style. The Angels themselves are definitely updated for this decade, kicking ass in the style of The Matrix. You should be glad about this last bit. Try watching martial arts choreography for American television in the 70s or even the bits of fighting that happen in the original series if you don't believe me. These fight scenes have a lot of energy and humor and something believable happens every now and then.
The movie definitely has its roots in the MTV generation. We felt almost more like we'd just been watching music videos for the past hour or so. The soundtrack is loud, the action is quick and often, and there's a zillion cleavage and butt shots. Once you add in the obligatory product placement scenes, and it's almost like going back to 1989 and watching MTV. It turns out this makes sense-- the director, McG, has never directed a feature length film before; he got his start directing music videos. You have to pack a lot of action into a four-minute video, and McG packs it into almost every four minutes of this movie. You can be sure that there will probably be a soundtrack for sale somewhere. That being said, we still feel going to music video directors to make feature length movies is a very hit-and-miss decision. The only reason why this worked here is because the main object of the movie was to have fun - a component inherent in most of the good music videos. Most of the time, having these music video directors direct feature-length movies fails miserably because music videos are only secondarily about telling a story. They're primarily about selling a piece of music and trying to attract the largest segment of the teen population with flashing images. If this movie had taken itself a little more seriously, it would have just been bad and, indeed, you can see how bad it could have been during some of the critical phases of the movie.
Anything else we could say about the movie would give away the fun bits. There is a plot but it doesn't get in the way. There are slow moments of character development but they're not overly painful and are occasionally funny. Some of the traditions are sternly upheld. There's still a ditzy blonde. The dark-haired one is also the smart one - and a rocket scientist at that. The Angels don't get to meet Charlie but almost see him. There's 70's music in the picture. There's even disco. The theme music is there as are the famous silhouettes against a large explosion in the opening sequence. In short, this movie is a faithful and improved update on the original. It's probably one of the most enjoyable transitions from television that we've seen since The Fugitive (although enjoyable in a different way).
Go see this movie. Leave the brain at home. Bring friends. We give it a 9 out of 10 on the Bad movie scale and a 6 out of 10 on the Good movie scale.
Our Drive-In Totals:
.8 breasts (PG-13 but there's a couple scenes where you can almost
see...)
1 dead body
1 dead cell phone
1 panic button / vibrator
1 "Engineers Rule!" speech
1 Imaginary Disco Moment
1 cartwheel through gates
1 dead soufflé
1 obligatory Impenetrable, Ultra-Secure, Mainframe-containing Room
1 scooter
1.5 moonwalks
3 body-crushing explosions
3 very exotic automobiles
4 In-Your-Face Product Placements (what happened to just having stuff
off to the side as subliminal
props?)
4 Slow Motion Hair Flips
4 car crashes
5 random thugs
Soul Train
Gratuitous belly dancing
Gratuitous yodeling
Direct thefts from The Matrix (*the* movie to imitate these days)
The Chad
Soap carving
George McFly
The World's Only Fly-By-Wire Huey
Mile High Club reference
Swiss Cheese Trailer
Silly Hair Sniffing
Kung Fu
Knife Fu
Sword Fu
Gun Fu
Missile Fu
Bow and Arrow Fu
Bomb Fu
Car Fu
Riding Crop Fu
Trailer Fu
Cane Fu
Muffin Fu
Sumo Suit Fu
Massage Fu
Garrote Fu
Free Fall Fu
Chair Fu
Chain Fu
Door Fu
Bell Fu
Kung Foot (This is J.D.'s fault again - foxtrot@cc.gatech.edu)
Good Movie Scale: 6
Bad Movie Scale: 9
