Charlie's Angels

Movie Name: Charlie's Angels
Year of Release: 2000

Director: McG

Stars: Drew Barrymore, Cameron Diaz, Lucy Liu, Bill Murray, Sam Rockwell, Kelly Lynch, Tim Curry, Crispin Glover, Luke Wilson, Matt LeBlanc, Sean Whalen

Genre: Comedy, Action, Adventure

Score out of ten (whole numbers only): 4
Watch it on Amazon

Synopsis:

"Charlie's Angels" is of course an iconic TV Show which debuted in 1976, and paved the way for a different type of storytelling, one which skewered more towards a female perspective, where the lead characters were all intelligent, sophisticated and resourceful women working for a non visible man by the name of Charlie. The show launched the careers of Jaclyn Smith, Farrah Fawcett and Kate Jackson. By the year 2000, Drew Barrymore and her producing partners assembled a new version of this show, now upgrade for the big screen, and anchored on a breezy and comedic tone, something the show didn't have. The film focuses on three heroes, Dylan, Natalie and Alex, all of whom work for Charlie, and are top notch investigators. They are assisted by Bosley, and this time around they are tackled with finding a software genius who has been kidnapped. While investigating the clues, the Angels start realizing that there's more to the story than they originally thought of, and it's up to them and their diverse set of skills, to unmask the real criminals.
"Charlie's Angels" was director McG's debut feature, after a career of directing music videos for different bands. His vision and stylistic approach is directly inherited from that previous stint: glossiness of the cinematography, quick cuts on the editing, blaring pop music to highlight set pieces, and overall lack of character development. All of these elements became part of his ongoing career, and are all on showcase in "Charlie's Angels". The film thankfully never takes itself seriously, particularly since the main characters are barely defined, and everything else is staged to highlight the beauty of the main leads, and how they can get away with surreal and outlandish action set pieces. Bill Murray as usual brings his deadpan delivery to the set, and makes the most of his underwritten role, the same going for Sam Rockwell. It's a film not to be taken seriously, easily forgotten, with a strong cast having a lot more fun than the audience.