Charlie's Angels
- The filmmakers blew their chance at making a fun re-boot by trying to trick the audience, but only ended up confusing their own plot.
Full Disclosure: I was near a movie theatre and actually wanted to see Ford v Ferrari (which I’m seeing tonight) but the timings didn’t work out, so I’ll admit that this was my second choice going in. But I like Elizabeth Banks, and with her at the helm, I was cautiously optimistic that this would be more Spider-Man: Homecoming and less Fantastic Four (2015) in terms of re-boots. Oops.
Review
It’s kind of hard to believe that the Charlie’s Angels franchise has been around for 43 years already. And as we seem to be in the age where studios and large production companies prefer any remotely recognizable existing intellectual property to original ideas, I guess it was only a matter of time before someone took another stab at an Angels movie (even with the rapid failure of the 2011 series re-boot). So, the big question for me was what new spin or take could this new movie have on previous iterations. Sadly, the answer is that there wasn’t one. It didn’t actual feel drastically different from the Drew Barrymore-led movies from almost two decades ago.
Being unoriginal doesn’t have to be a crippling failure for a movie franchise – Mission Impossible has been basically doing the same schtick for 23 years now and I thought the last 3 movies were great. But it does mean that the movie needs to be good to hold my interest. Unfortunately, Charlie’s Angels mostly failed at being both good and original.
The main problem I had with this movie is that a lot of the plot just made no sense. I’ll get into more in the Spoilers section, but it seemed like the filmmakers were trying so hard to trick the viewers with misdirection that they ended up confusing themselves. Other parts of the movie didn’t seem to advance the plot at all. For example, there’s a whole scene at a horse racing track that seems to exist for the sole purpose of putting Kristen Stewart in a colourful jockey’s uniform.
The movie also makes horrible use of its filming locations, to the point where I had to look it up in IMDb afterwards to make sure that they hadn’t just used stock outdoor footage and then filmed on a soundstage. I was excited when establishing shots of places like Berlin and Istanbul appeared, hoping we were going to get James Bond-level action in cool places. So you can imagine my disappointment when most of the film’s key action sequences take place inside buildings or in a damn rock quarry.
Stewart, Balinska, and Scott try their best but are let down by a confusing plot.
I’ve been pretty negative so far, so I should say that there were things about the film that I enjoyed. I liked how they tried to lend cohesion to the Angels universe by acknowledging previous iterations (including in a photo montage), and by making “Bosley” a title, rather than a name. I think that was a smart move, and effectively made this movie more of a continuation of things before than a straight re-boot.
I also liked Kristen Stewart quite a bit. She has a tendency to appear to be sleepwalking through roles at times, but I actually found her charming and quirky in this one. Her two main co-stars, Naomi Scott (mostly recently Jasmine inAladdin), and Ella Balinska, had their moments as well.
Spoilers Ahead
We’ve got filming locations in Germany and Turkey! Yay! So let’s go film in a random quarry instead!
Early on in the movie the audience is “tipped off” that Elizabeth Banks’ Bosley character is a traitor. Since it happens so early on in the story it only leads to two thoughts: 1) this is stupid, why did they tell us? 2) there is obviously another twist and she isn’t a traitor after all. In order to string the audience along on this false trail, there were a bunch of non-sensical plot points, including a key moment where Banks just disappears, leaving the Angels on their own and left with the belief that she’s a traitor. Of course, this could have all been avoided if Banks’ character had just told the Angels, who she was in radio contact with at the time, what she was doing, but then I guess the filmmakers wouldn’t have been able to revel in their own cleverness, believing that they tricked the audience.
The real villain, it turns out, is Patrick Stewart’s retired Bosley character. Setting aside his questionable motivations, this was just a criminal waste of Stewart’s talents. If you want him to play a villain, let him really dive in from the beginning and explore the character.
The final showdown sequence also made little sense. It takes place at a big product launch party, but then in the end it turns out that every single person attending was either a bad guy or an Angel. What was the whole point of going through the motions of the party then? There’s also a random about-face from villain-to-helper by a character named “Australian Jonny” that came out of nowhere in that final scene, but maybe the less said about his confusing character the better.
Perhaps this is all a problem ingrained in the Charlie’s Angels franchise - the trickery, the double-crosses, the unknown identity of key characters. I still think that they could have made a much better movie with these characters, but maybe it’s just time, after 43 years, for the whole franchise to die.
Was this look really worth wasting 10 minutes of screen time for? Guess the filmmakers thought so.
5 Quick Hits
There are about 6 quick mid-credits scenes that are basically a training montage for Scott’s character which essentially sets the team up for future adventures. That stuff was all fun. Unfortunately, I can’t see this team getting any more chances in future instalments.
The mid-credits scenes also included a bunch of fun cameos, including one former Angel. So if you’ve made it that far, stick around for a few more minutes to watch up to the end of those scenes.
Nat Faxon plays an arrogant, entitled prick so well that it must be hard for him to receive offers for any other kind of role. If he’s content playing that type, however, he must be swimming in casting opportunities.
Sam Claflin was also enjoyable, and seemed to be having fun leaning into the ridiculous side of his tech CEO character.
This may sound like a weird comment, but, Ella Balinska is supposedly only 5 inches taller than the others, but often appears much taller in shots in the movie (as well as promo material) to the point that it’s kind of distracting. They should have called it out or made a joke about it. It just seemed odd that it wasn’t made reference to in the banter between the lead characters.
