By
Ian Caruth
Arizona Daily Wildcat
'Charlie's Angels' is a breezy, fun 90s update of the 70s TV series
Much like its latter-day spiritual grandchild "Baywatch," "Charlie's Angels" was a daring risk for TV executives when it premiered in the mid-70s. After all, who knew if mainstream American audiences would take to the combination of fast action, lowbrow comedy and breathtakingly gorgeous women?
Luckily for stereotype enabler and show producer Aaron Spelling, the show was hugely successful, allowing star Farrah Fawcett the opportunity to leave after a few meteoric months of TV stardom and pursue her dream of becoming hopelessly insane.
Thankfully, the movie adaptation of "Charlie's Angels" keeps the elements that made the series so enjoyable, but eliminates... well, nothing really, but most of the music is new. Actually, an update for the post-90s provides the filmic equivalent of cybernetic enhancements to "Charlie's Angels'" now-sagging body - the movie is smarter, tighter, faster... better than the original series.
The titular roles are perfectly cast: Cameron Diaz plays Natalie, the tall, gorgeous, dorky one, childhood cocaine connoisseur Drew Barrymore plays Dylan, the bad girl with a sweet heart, and Lucy Liu stars as Alex, the sophisticated all-business disciplinarian. Appealing to the widest range possible of fetish fans, the characters' dispositions also complement each other well and the actresses have solid chemistry together.
America's greatest comic actor Bill Murray chews up scenery in fine fashion as Bosley, the liason between the girls and the unseen Charlie. Voiced by John Forsythe, Charlie is the millionaire and probable dirty old man who keeps the Angels in his employ as private investigators, though their equipment and missions would make James Bond feel sadly inadequate.
Opening with a flashy airplane hostage sequence that would have felt perfectly at home on the TV series, the film proceeds briskly to scenes involving each of the Angels at home, then to their office to pick up some elements of plot. It seems that computer genius Eric Knox (an appealing Sam Rockwell) - inventor of a powerful new voice-recognition software - has been kidnapped. The Angels must find him and recover his software before dastardly Roger Corwin (hammy Tim Curry) can use it in conjunction with global positioning satellites to spy on cell phone conversations and bring an end to privacy.
Though anyone who spied on cellular conversations would probably just hear a lot of "Nothin'. Whutchoo doin'?"- type idiocy, this seems important enough to the Angels to don lots of tight clothing and open a serious can of whoop-ass on anyone standing in their way.
The opening of the whoop-ass can is a pleasure to behold. "Charlie's Angels" features some of the best fight scenes in the last ten years, choreographed by Hong Kong action master Yuen Cheung-Yan. Spectacularly precise and balletic, these scenes are an unexpected but welcome pleasure, recalling the eye-popping fight sequences in "The Matrix" and using similar effects.
Mononymed first-time feature auteur McG, who previously directed video clips for Korn and Sugar Ray, helms "Charlie's Angels" with a sure hand, crafting a kinetic and colorful live-action comic book. He paces and shoots the film similarly to the series, using 70s-style splitscreen effects and episodic plot development to create a smart 90s update of a much-loved - and lusted after - series.
"Charlie's Angels" has no artistic pretensions, and thank God for that. A breezy, often hilarious script, incredible action sequences, toned thighs and solid performances make "Charlie's Angels" a bubblegum movie of the finest sort - sweet and lots of fun, even if it is empty.
