Hola mis companeros, Harry esta aqui en Austin, que lastima! AAAAaaaaaarrrrghhhh, must get Spanish out of my head.... madre English... por favor, arrrrrriiiibbbaaaa!!! Sigh, it has come almost second nature to me... this latino lengua, por que no se, pero mis muy gusto a voy aqui! EEEEeeeeekkkk, what I need is to talk about some caliente ellas, like the CHARLIE'S ANGELS!!! That most recent trailer looks like it could be a hoot, and from talking a viejo del diablo en telefono que senor Gregor Samsa digase "La cine es muy muy fabulosa!" So my fears have been put aside, and I expect the review from Gregor to be posted by Moriarty very soon... Till then, read about the Quick Brown Fox and vaya con Dios mis amigos...
Hey Harry and the rest of the gang!
Guess what.
I saw Charlie's Angels.
You know what's even better?
The movie's not half bad.
Well, I'll be fair. I'll tell you what the rest of the people in my party thought. Two of my friends hated it. They were looking at it too objectively (then again, one of these friends liked What Lies Beneath), another friend seemed kind of mixed on the subject. Then there was my brother, who enjoyed it about as much as I did.
This is not a movie to be taken seriously; it's a spoof on the action genre that manages to supply some pretty cool sequences at the same time. A lot of it looks like a direct attack on M:I-2 with most of the action being done in slow motion, at least two sequences involving birds (although no doves) and even a segment that is taken from the first Mission: Impossible movie, although it has enough changes to make it tongue in cheek funny.
The movie knows its about action, not story. It doesn't waste its time trying to explain the plot, which is generic. It's basically a satirical form of the Bond formula. There's an opening involving an unrelated action sequence on a plane (most of it is shown in the trailer). The plot is explained in short segments, then the movie moves on to its action, which is as fantastic as it is unbelievable.
To be honest, I'm not sure how much to take seriously in the fight scenes. They're extremely improbable, yet pretty exciting at the same time. For example, there's a bicycle kick that lasts for about 20 feet. No, it wouldn't happen in real life, but it doesn't seem too far off in comparison to some recent action movies. The fight scenes take on a surrealistic quality where the director knows how fake it seems, but goes ahead with it anyway. The result is pretty nifty and funny in a subtle way that I don't think most of the audience got.
Murray, Liu and Diaz are great, however, Barrymore wasn't working at the same level. While the other actors took the material seriously, and were funny in an almost Airplane! kind of way, Barrymore acted like she was in on the joke. The result is a number of lame one-liners. She was one of the producers for the movie; that's probably the only reason she's in it. She's probably also the only reason that Tom Green makes a few cameo appearances. Bill Murray is genius as he improvises what seems like scripted lines; Green sounds like he's improvising, regardless of whether or not he is.
Basically, Charlie's Angels is entertaining enough to recommend. Like I said earlier, my friends didn't really agree with me, although I'm usually considered the most critical among them. As long as you accept it as a spoof, you'll be entertained. If you're looking for realism, you walked into the wrong theater.
You may call me The Quick Brown Fox.
