2000 -

Director: McG
Starring: Cameron Diaz, Drew Barrymore, Lucy Liu, Bill Murray, Tim Curry, Crispin Glover, Kelly Lynch, Luke Wilson, Sam Rockwell, Matt LeBlanc, Tom Green

- Reviewed by Linda

There's nothing like a good, swift, kick in the neck to put a man in his place. Especially if you're wearing high-heeled boots and wearing a tight outfit. How realistic is that? I know that if my pants are too tight, I can barely bend my legs enough to kneel over, much less hold my leg at a 75-degree angle to strike a pose. But hey, if you're going to see Charlie's Angels for a dose of realism, you're in the wrong theater, sister!

Of course Charlie's Angels is all about T & A... but it is done successfully campy (as it should be). I started guffawing at the "faux" opening TV-style credits (you know, quick edits of favorite "scenes" from the show, all to an updated theme song). The brief introduction of the characters when they were all "little girls" will be especially funny to those of us who were coming of age in the early to mid-80s. When Lucy Liu, as Alex, is initially introduced, they show her whipping off her skydiving helmet with her long luscious locks cascading down. Smiling her pearly whites, in slow motion, she whips her hair back and forth. Back and forth. Back and forth. (Repeat for an excessively long time.) Hilarious!

Along with Alex (Liu), our other hot-babe crime-fighters are Dylan (Drew Barrymore) and Natalie (Cameron Diaz), with pimpy-Bosley (Bill Murray) as the liaison between them and their never-seen boss Charlie. They don't use guns, but instead rely only on their fists (kind of a nice touch), not to mention lots of Matrix-style ass-kicking with very pointy boots. The fight scenes are all pretty much Matrix rip-offs, with lots of stop-motion spinning cameras (which, I admit, still looks really cool), not to mention a heavy dose of Xena choreography (with multiple victims getting kicked in the head with a single flying leap). Even though the fight scenes are derivative, they are exciting and done well, especially when the girls cross bad-guy Crispin Glover (!) in an alley. I would never have imagined Crispin Glover and Drew Barrymore in a hardcore, kung-fu fighting scene, but that's the magic of Hollywood! 

Lucy Liu plays up her über-dominatrix stereotype to hilarious effect, Cameron Diaz continues to win my heart as a very talented comic actress (the "Soul Train" scene is a gem), and Drew Barrymore... well, she's Drew. I still see the five-year-old girl from E.T. in her face, so it throws me off to see her in, well, a very BREASTY role, so to speak.

Charlie's Angels is a perfect, low-brow popcorn movie with lots of genuine laughs. And unlike most Hollywood action movies, you don't leave the theater feeling used and cheap (unless you like that sort of thing).

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