Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle

Heaven is surely missing an angel - three in fact! Hollywood's most desired females are back in a sizzling cocktail of action, dance and comedy. Read on for our verdict.

Those who read our Charlies Angels 2 preview won't be strangers to my cheerleading on this movie. The original was the zeitgeist of all things great about women in cinema from the trio's ass-kicking antics all the way down to Diaz's goofiness, Liu's intelligence and Barrymore's wild child persona.

A far removal from the TV series; it was a postmodern celebration, if you will, of girls getting down. With Charlie's Angels 2, it does indeed go "full throttle", but various choices made the film fall a couple of gears behind of propelling the good into the amazing.

Its opening sequence typically begins with the girls incognito in Mongolia. Dylan (Barrymore) is the mysterious insider gambling with the captain, Alex (Liu) trounces the guards to rescue Marshall Ray Carter, and Natalie (Diaz) parades in a snow white fur and boot costume as the day's entertainment and goes bucking bronco in the room full of guards. It's all very camp and obviously goes terribly wrong when they are out-ed from their disguise. Pursued onto the famous bridge scene, the girls and Marshall Carter are forced to steer their vehicle off to sudden death, only to miraculously climb onto the helicopter on the back of the truck. All part of a day's work, of course.

The story unfolds as more innocents and another FBI member is murdered. Carter (Robert Patrick) reveals he was kidnapped for his (Halo) ring band, which forms one half of the code needed to unlock the whole FBI Witness Protection Program. The angels are then sent on a mission to duly recover the rings before a full list of witnesses is sold to gangland members out for blood. And obviously get the mastermind before she gets them.

Charlie's Angels isn't a typical film but more like tantalising bite-sized mouthfuls of popcorn thrills from start to finish. In action, Diaz, Barrymore and Liu are unstoppable in their set pieces as they effortlessly switch from biker girls, to exotic dancers, nuns, etc. Much of it is down to the tongue-in-cheek references and goofy homage being paid to today's pop culture but you have to hand it to all three actresses who deliver. Whether it's the film's homage to Indiana Jones in Mongolia or the Pussycat Dolls in the strip sequence, each scenario manages a cheeky in-joke and eye candy seduction all the way.

Each angel promise such a charming, stunning yet likeable performance in their individual roles that audiences cannot help but will them on in each heist, mission, race… even with their girly problems regarding marriage and explaining to parents about their life as an angel. It's dumb, we know, but it works.

McG is at the helm of the project giving the bubble gum slickness and very stylised direction to the film again. Likewise to the original, the movie looks like a comic book half the time and like MTV on crack for the rest of the time - which is no surprise considering McG's music video and promo directing credentials. The CG and special effects are solid, with most of the stunts and bullet time sequences executed very well especially in the opening scene, although it's not anything you haven't seen already.

We loved the camerawork during the bridge escape scene as they sky dive to grab the helicopter. Though the direction for the bike race was sloppy in parts and has been deeply criticised by other film-goers. If it wasn't for the surprise at the end of the race, the sequence may have fallen flat on its face in the dirt tracks. As a director, McG does well at the difficult task of making the audience buy into the ludicrous and the fantastical scenarios, and he should take a lot of the credit for this film's success.

Of all the angels, Dylan's struggle is at the crux of the story again as her past catches up with her in the shape of an ex-boyfriend and gangster Seamus (Justin Theroux) who was sent down by Dylan before she became an angel. Theroux is at times quite threatening in his performance and proves to be a thorn in their sides in the coolest warehouse-fight sequence in the film. The kung fu, weaponry and stunts in this scene are wicked with the fluid wirework grounding all the climbing and aerial ass kicking.

Other key performances are generally okay. Demi Moore's comeback in this film as Madison Lee wasn't the spectacle it should have been but she plays the fallen ex-angel well - and is convincing as a heartless and lone agent out to get power. Though superb in his other roles, I found myself cringing at Bernie Mac's fish out of water portrayal as the new Bosley. Some of his one-liners were great especially when he was trying to chaperone the children across the road but his nervous posture towards joining in on the missions only worked half the time.

There are also some cool cameos by the likes of Bruce Willis, Pink, The Olsen Twins, as well as Luke Wilson and Matt le Blanc who reprise their roles as the angels' boyfriends. We still can't help but think 'Joey from Friends' whenever we see Le Blanc though, not that we like to typecast of course.

Maybe we're beginning to suffer from sequel-fever but we weren't completely bowled over by CA2 as much as the first one. There were a few things that didn't fit quite right with the awesomeness of the rest of the film. For instance, John Cleese's appearance as Liu's father was a casting mistake. They were trying to capture Cleese's famed dry wit in a bottle for the film but it just didn't really work for the role and we're left with a very talented actor just reacting to jokes rather than creating them. Crispin Glover's Thin Man was also wasted in a bizarre tale of being an orphan, and his late liaison with Barrymore was bordering on the insane. Oh dear, bring back George McFly!

The biggest crime in CA2 was the disappointing screenplay. Which ever way you look at it, part of Charlie's Angels' charm is its humour and it was frankly let down by a poorly written script. The story was always going to take back seat to the action but besides a couple of the scenes, there was nothing that should have compromised the screenplay except for the writer himself/herself. Come on girls - any toilet humoured joke would have been better left to Mike Myers who does it a hundred times better in Austin Powers.

Charlie's Angels 2 is the type of film where you leave your brain at the door and just enjoy what's served up on the screen. Diaz, Liu and Barrymore are fantastic as always but are let down by settling for a poor screenplay that would have made a dramatic difference to the final product.

Transistor Sister
Film Critic, Kikizo Movies