CHARLIE'S ANGELS

2000

Finally, those beautiful but dangerous female detectives rock their way onto the big screen. With Cameron Diaz, Drew Barrymore and Lucy Liu as the angels and Bill Murray as Bosley it would seem that you couldn't go wrong. And, that's not too far off. As my friend Doug puts it, its "Jiggle TV." Do I need to talk plot? Probably not, but it's very much a James Bond-ish, Mission: Impossible style story. Speaking of Mission: Impossible, Cruise is going to feel so ripped off when he sees this film. There are also heavy influences from The Matrix and an all around MTV-ish feel that I thought really worked. None of the angels use firearms, but they are all martial arts experts and there some good fight scenes thanks to great a great editing job (how else do you get Barrymore doing maneuvers that Jackie Chan would struggle with?). Its extremely stupid, its very mediocre acting, but it has some very funny and exciting scenes and it IS lots of fun. Turn your brain off and enjoy.

4 Stars

CDF

When the "director" of an action film has the ridiculous name, McG, and the stars are Drew Barrymore, Cameron Diaz, and Lucy Liu, one should expect nothing more of the movie than tits-and-ass, soft-core porn, and some comic book adventures. That's exactly what you get. McG's direction probably went something like this:" Girls, take your clothes off, jump in the air, and kick!" That's what we get for 1 -1/2 hours! The girls look great, in or out of their clothes. Supposedly Drew Barrymore, one of the producers, didn't want guns used in this re-make of the gun-filled tv series of years ago. Sort of like doing a remake of an MGM musical and leaving out the music. What we get instead is a lot of Jackie Chan, kung-fu, kick-boxing bullshit done with wires and computer graphics. The three female stars and Bill Murray, in another stupid role, probably had a lot of fun making this film, and some of that fun is captured on screen in moments of self-parody. But in between these moments there's a lot of dead air. The movie is aimed at the teen-aged boys who love Jackie Chan movies and "The Matrix." If you fall into that category you'll love it too. But most of the time I found myself saying, "What the hell am I watching this boring crap for?"

2 Stars

NJB