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Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle
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| Year: |
2003
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Director: |
McG
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| Stars: |
Drew Barrymore, Cameron Diaz, Lucy Liu, Demi Moore, Bernie Mac, Justin Theroux, Crispin Glover, Matt LeBlanc, Luke Wilson, John Cleese, Robert Patrick, Robert Forster, Carrie Fisher, Bruce Willis, Pink, John Forsythe
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| Genre: |
Comedy, Action |
| Rating: |
  3 (from 6 votes) |
| Review: |
'Oh what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive.' People are inclined to think that this quote is from Shakespeare, but they would be wrong. It's from Sir Walter Scott's, Marmion (1808). This is the same problem that would present itself when one scanned the papers looking for something to see on a Friday or Saturday night at the movies. Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle bears no resemblance whatsoever to what the majority of us would feel warrants the moniker of a movie. Have we ever been deceived and big time!
Rather, Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle, reveals itself to be a walking, talking homage to the inanimate pages of Playboy and a host of other adult oriented magazines that purport to appeal to the mature and intellectual male of the species. Translation: hormone driven 15 year old boys and adult males without a grip on reality.
The storyline for this film is nonexistent to say the least and an embarrassment at most. I've read better on cereal boxes. The Angels, in the guise of Drew Barrymore (Dylan), Lucy Lui (Alex) and Cameron Diaz (Natalie), are called upon to go after stolen rings that have been encoded with government secrets that would unlock the locale of the witness protection program. Into this mix, add evil Angel, Demi Moore (Madison), with malice aforethought rearing her raven tressed head, and you have the formula for a catastrophe waiting to happen (and not just to the honest Angels). This is not a film inasmuch as it is MTV for the big screen.
Lucy Liu shows all of one emotion - the put upon dominatrix with flashes of kung fu to liven things up a little. Cameron Diaz displays what she is best known for - a toothy grin and tons of derriere galore to stimulate a smile to the faces of those males for whom a solo Saturday night would not be complete without. Drew Barrymore is like a little girl on a blowout, allowed to do and say anything that pops into her head. Demi Moore - well, what more can be said of a 40 year old actress, other than she knows how to pick her real life boyfriends. The publicity that this PR campaign has generated for the film is worth its weight in gold. If she hadn't appeared in this film, does one really think that her relationship would have seen the light of day in the tabloids? I think not. In a nutshell, these women are called upon to do nothing more than act like a concentration of bimbos.
Gentle reader, I was not expecting to see Shakespeare being performed, but neither was I prepared for the babe-o-licious (the words of some young males as I exited the theatre) production that I encountered, either. This was not Girl Power as I have always wanted to envision it, but rather Girls Acting Badly With Nothing To Show For It, unless you consider live Barbie dolls strutting with one thing on their minds, sex and how to use it, as power per se.
The director of this disaster, McG (and I would keep this nom de plume if I were him! All the better to thwart the crowds of people who will be breaking down his door for refunds from having seen this film!), shows himself to be a man with little or no vision, except to perpetuate the myth of women as sex objects and little more. How DO people like this get directing jobs? The screenwriters, (and boy, do I use that term lightly) John August, Cormac Wibberly and Marianne Wibberly, need to use whatever money they made from this turkey to attend basic writing lessons at their local community college. Teenage boys could have written this treatment and had more fun doing it in the process.
The cinematography is a yawn. How many CGI and Bullet Time effects can one person or an audience, take before the awe wears off? I have the sly suspicion that Russell Carpenter saw The Matrix one too many times. Been there, done that, over it! He's usually a very good addition to any production, so it mystifies me as to how he became associated with this stinker.
In closing, the real shame is that Hollywood has the feeling that not only American but foreign audiences are ready and willing to submit to a dumbing down of what used to be impeccable standards for movie making. Well made and thought out movies sometimes go begging for audiences, because the huge Goliath known as Hollywood pulls out all the stops and pumps bank loads of cash into smelly messes such as this, then screams at Oscar time how badly they want to be taken seriously. I am sure that when that time comes, we will see ads asking the voting membership for their 'considerations' for nominations ranging from Best (take your pick) all the way down to Go-fer of The Year for Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle.
Brief, implied nudity, constant sexual innuendoes, and little girl shenanigans do not a great film make. Grow up!
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| Reviewer: |
Mary Sibley
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| McG (1970 - )
American director whose flashy promo work for bands like Smash Mouth and Sugar Ray led him to helm 2000s big-screen update Charlie's Angels and its 2003 sequel, along with a blockbusting Terminator sequel. This Means War was an expensive flop, and 3 Days to Kill did not quite revitalise Kevin Costner's stardom. Also worked on the trashy TV show Fastlane. Real name Joseph McGinty Nichol. |
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