Hey, everyone. "Moriarty" here with some rumblings from the Lab.
Everyone's favorite man-turned-roach just scuttled under the door of the Labs, a startled look on his face. A few days back, I had shown him the new trailer for CHARLIE'S ANGELS, which you can find here. To be perfectly honest, I think the trailer looks ridiculous, silly, over the top... and fun. I can't lie. I think Cameron Diaz is preposterously cute in it, and Bill makes me laugh. Even if that's ALL it had going for it, I'd have to confess some curiousity. But it's got Crispin Glover as a badguy (that's him and Lucy Liu swordfighting), and that's all I need to know. Here's what AICN's newest masterspy has to say about the film and his evening. Samsa?
Hey fellow geeks….I just got home from what I think is the second test screening of Charlie’s Angels….you guys are all going to hate me….I liked it.
Weird huh? Never, in a million years did I think I would actually like this film. The trailer was ok, but didn’t show me anything to get excited about. I was honestly just going to wait to see this at a friend’s someday and let them pay for the rental.
So what’s so great you ask? For starters, Cameron Diaz is just so damn cute. Drew Barrymore, lisp and all, is even cuter. And Lucy Liu, well, for those of you who liked her in PAYBACK, you are going to love her in this. Normally in a review I like to bring up the director and talk about what makes them bad or good, but I think I’ll just skip that with this one. The movie is just so much fun in a lot of different ways, I really don’t want to focus on past directorial endeavors of someone only listed as McG on the imdb. So on with show.
The movie opens with a bang. It brings the crowd right into it with a few funny little tidbits and then right into a huge scale action sequence, which stars LL COOL J. As you would expect, cool j has about 2 lines and doesn’t really have to do much. He’s basically around so everyone in the audience can collectively say to their neighbor “hey, that’s ll cool j!” Which is fine. This film is not about art. It’s about getting the crowd into it. Did I say I had fun at this movie?
After the sequence concludes we are introduced to our heroines. Done in the style of the old seventies show opening credits we get to see a brief (very brief) look at each angel’s past. Then we get the setup for the film. Bosley (Bill Murray) informs the girls of their new client. He’s a rich computer programmer whose been taken hostage by the head of a rival corporation Roger Corwin (Tim Curry). Their job is to rescue him and the technology that was stolen from him. That’s essentially the plot and as much as I going to give away….a little about Bill Murray….let me say that I am a huge fan of his and his talents go slightly unused in this film. Not to say he’s not funny, because he sure as hell is, but the material he has to use is a little below par for my taste. The scene that is in the trailer where he lights a gas fireplace and it blows up in his face stands out as one that is waste of Murray. This, as is many of his jokes, is only a sight gag…not really a developed joke or good use of his comedic genius. Also, I was hoping to see more of him throughout the movie, like the fourth angel of sorts, but he sadly never breaks out of the supporting character slot. That being said, Bill Murray is still Bill Murray and he still is funny as shit.
Cameron Diaz…wow. Diaz plays Natalie, who is kind of dorky, but extremely hot. Envision the hottest girl you know, and then make her into a big dork. That’s Natalie, running, jumping, and kicking ass, a la THE MATRIX. “The Matrix?” you ask.
Yes, The Matrix. This was one of my big problems in the trailer. How can they pull off Cameron Diaz, set in reality, doing a triple kick into Crispin Glover’s chest? Glover, by the way, excellently overacts every scene he has as the Thin Man. Well they pull it off, and you are going to love it, that’s right, YOU ARE going to love it. The whole tone of the film is a farce. It’s a fun joke of a movie, and if you get that, you won’t have any problem with Diaz doing a triple back handspring onto a giant mainframe computer, only to land in a handstand and hold it there for seconds, while she most adeptly fills out her silky white leotard. Aside from all the action she is involved in, she also gets credit for pulling off the funniest scene in the movie. Yeah, we know she can be funny, we all saw There’s Something About Mary, but the scene I am writing about is a completely different level for her. Let me just say, it involves the Sir Mix-a-lot and whole lot of booty.
Sam Rockwell plays the genius programmer, Eric Knox, who needs to be saved. I just saw Green Mile yesterday for the second time on the big screen and the whole time I just kept thinking what a wonderful actor Rockwell is (he played “Wild Bill Wharton”). His comedic talents were also showcased in GALAXY QUEST last year where he played Guy Fleegman the extra who tagged along. Not to mention his role in SAFE MEN, the grossly overlooked comedy where he played Sam. While I respect him completely as an actor, he is very flat in this role. Again, I fear this is just a lack of quality material.
Drew Barrymore, aka Dylan, is given some really interesting things to do in this movie, and what sticks out in my head as the most interesting right now, is dangling naked from a window above a hillside supported only by the sheet she was wearing. Drew, god love her, is what I think is the weakest of the three angels. She doesn’t really seem to pull off the kicks and spins and flip kicks like the other two. In one seen, that was ripped off completely from True Lies, she is tied up and tells the five guys around her how she is going to escape step by step. You remember? When Arnold is drugged up and tells the torturer guys how he’s going to hang him on that hook? Well, it was shamelessly ripped from that movie. But that’s fine. Movies rip off other movies all the time. I just really didn’t buy her flying around the room the way she did. You could really see the wirework in action. Ok, enough harping on poor Drew.
Lucy Liu, who plays Alex, really sells it. She is sweet, and nice, and wonderful, like an angel should be. But she also kicks major ass and looks really good in her fight scenes, line an angel should. She has a few shining moments in the flick which just put your jaw on the floor. What a badass chick! There’s some of Ling here, and some of Pearl here, and it all works really well. Unfortunately, she is paired up with Matt LeBlanc (LePUKE) as her love interest, which just makes me want to smack the casting director around. Come on! Just because she is a television actress doesn’t mean she should be relegated to television actors. She’s proven she can hold her own on the big screen with big screen actors. Goddamned Matt LeBlanc. What a blemish on this movie.
Sorry, I just really really don’t like him on the silver screen.
And lastly, I would like to give credit to Crispin Glover who you will remember as George McFly from BACK TO THE FUTURE. He plays a bad swashbuckling assassin only known as the Thin Man. If you liked how Christopher Walken played the Hessian in SLEEPY HOLLOW, you should really dig this performance. He WAY overdoes it. It’s brilliant. And it fits the movie perfectly. For half of the movie he is running around with a lock of hair he gleamed from one of the angel’s cute little heads in his hand and sniffing it like a madman. Sort of like that crazy kid from study hall, who was always sniffing his white out, you know, just so everyone would know how crazy he was. Anyway, he’s hilarious and sinister all at the same time.
There are a few nods to fans of the original series in here too. Some lines are taken directly from the show and Charlie’s voice remains the same. And thank God they didn’t go and give Charlie a face…that would have been really dumb. I thought it was strange though that they didn’t keep in tune with the original series in one respect. If you have seen the show, then you would know that Charlie has one weakness…women. Whenever he appeared in the show, whatever body part they focused on, hand or foot, it was always accompanied by a seductive woman or two. I missed that aspect. Soooooooo…I know I just ripped on bunch of things that I thought needed a ripping, but on the whole this movie really was fun. Way above the bar I had set for it. So in November, when you’ve got a free night or afternoon on your hands, grab a seat and big tub of popcorn and have fun with three hot chicks and Bill Murray.
You can yell at me here.
