Great Film: Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle

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Is This What the Movies Have Come To?



Attacking `Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle' is a bit like shooting secret agents in a barrel; there's just not a lot of sport in it because it's way too easy to do.

Cameron Diaz, Lucy Liu and Drew Barrymore return as the giggly, jiggly trio who, we're supposed to believe, are amazing, expert crime fighters. About the only way this material stands even a chance of succeeding is if the filmmakers treat it like some over-the-top, live action cartoon (or is it video game?) - which is pretty much what they've done. Unfortunately, it turns out to be a cartoon almost totally devoid of wit, creativity and charm. The plot mainly consists of finding ways to get the girls into campy costumes and situations. Thus we have the angels as nuns, the angels as welders, the angels as exotic dancers. The problem is that this cutesiness wears awfully thin after awhile, especially since that is pretty much all the screenplay manages to come up with in the way of entertainment.

The stunt sequences – which consist mainly of tedious slow-motion shots of the girls flipping through the air, karate-chopping the bad guys and dodging bullets - are so excessive in nature that we begin to understand what a detrimental effect `The Matrix' (however inadvertently) has had on filmmaking in the past few years. When any physical action - no matter how contrary to the laws of physics and gravity - is possible, how are we supposed to care what happens to the people involved? If no one seems to be in any real danger, all possible suspense is eliminated and we are left admiring the work of the special effects team and very little else. The `Charlie's Angels' films are not alone in this regard, but they do serve as handy warning signs of the potentially debilitating effect of this trend on the future of action movies.

About halfway through the film, Jaclyn Smith, one of the angels from the original TV series, shows up to dispense some veteran advice to one of our intrepid little cherubs. Though long past her prime, Smith is so goddess-y beautiful in her brief moments on screen that, not only does she outclass all three of the leading players, but she makes us, heaven forbid, even feel a twinge of nostalgia – however faint - for the original series. Frankly, I didn't think that was possible. Credit the makers of this fiasco for achieving at least that much with their film.

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