Genre:
Action, Adventure, Comedy
Produced by:
Elizabeth Banks, Elizabeth Cantillon, Max Handelman, Doug Belgrad
Directed by:
Elizabeth Banks
Written by:
Elizabeth
Banks
Production Company: Columbia Pictures
Starring: Kristen Stewart, Naomi Scott,
Ella Balinska, Elizabeth Banks, Djimon Hounsou, Noah Centineo, Sam Claflin,
Patrick Stewart
Runtime: 119 minutes
SYNOPSIS:
Elena Houghlin (Naomi Scott), a young systems engineer working for a multi-million
dollar technology company, decides to expose her employer’s dark secret when
she finds out that they possess a device with dangerous potential. In order to
keep their traces clean, the company starts sending assassins out to get rid of
her. And her only way towards her own safety and stopping her employer’s plan
is by agreeing to join forces with Sabina Wilson (Kristen Stewart) and Jane Kano (Ella Balinska), both of whom are members/Angels of a covert
detective organization called the Townsend Agency.
REVIEW:
Created by Ivan Goff and Ben Roberts,
Charlie’s Angels was the earliest
proof that there was room for feminist escapism in the entertainment industry. It
reinvented the way people see women in the media, with its premise of three beautiful
women who work as private detectives and are good at kicking butt, driving fast
cars and simply look hot doing all of those things. And the fact that this formula
made it one of the most watched shows
during its initial run just spoke volume of the public’s demand for more female-driven
entertainment.
For all its landmark creative
achievements, the show was not without its own detractors. It gained a
reputation for relying too much on its stars’ sex appeal for ratings, which helped
give birth to the term “Jiggle television”. A one-time Angel Farrah Fawcett even mentioned that Charlie’s Angels’ success rested more on
her not wearing a bra for one particular episode rather than her acting quality.
Regardless though, its influence remains unparalleled, even after the show had
ended in 1981. Charlie’s Angels still
drew huge following even way into the 21st century, especially with
the two highly successful McG movie
adaptations.
Sixteen years after Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle (2003), Elizabeth Banks takes over from McG, writing, directing, producing and even starring as a Bosley,
for the franchise’s protracted third cinematic installment, which almost feels
like a reboot than a trilogy-capper. It’s a different decade after all, and 2019’s
Charlie’s Angels has an entirely
different cast with Kristen Stewart,
Ella Balinska, and Naomi Scott playing the next generation
Angels. Drew Barrymore, who played
one of the Angels in the McG movies,
is the sole survivor from the previous movie and even her role here is nothing
more than just an executive producer. Despite the wholesale changes on and off
the camera, Banks has stated that
her movie is a direct continuation to both the Goff/Roberts show and
the McG movies.
And in that respect, 2019’s Charlie’s Angels serves up an overall bright,
lighthearted and surprisingly pleasant spy romp capable of honoring the time-honored
franchise tradition of attractive women saving the world while also forging a
new path of its own. Banks puts her distinctively
modern fourth-wave feminist stamp on the age-old material, sprinkling the
screen with so many progressive ideas to set her take apart from her male counterparts.
Her Charlie’s
Angels movie is the much-needed revisionist spin on the classic Jiggle
entertainment tropes associated with the brand, in which she completely and
effectively reevaluates how the series has been viewing the term “girl power” all
along by deconstructing the Angels’ mythic male gaze appeal in favor of grounding
them in reality, hence showcasing these heroines in a more human light. Banks’ work is a clear reflection of her time, similar to the way the over-the-top,
cartoonish McG movies reflected the
post-the Matrix (1999) era of wire-fu
action movies in the early 2000’s or even how the pulpy, occasionally sexist Goff/Roberts’ show reflect the male-centric era of network television in
the mid-to-late 1970’s.
At the same time, 2019’s Charlie’s Angels proudly wears its
predecessors’ designer clothes flashiness and girls-just-want-to-have-fun
silliness on its sleeve. Banks knows
exactly what kind of movie she is making and she does a terrific job at walking
that tricky tonal tightrope between earnest sentiments and satirical
self-awareness as it shifts comfortably from something as deep and meaningful
as character-building girl talks between the Angels about their past and their
sexuality to something as ridiculous and out-there as the most obligatory
sequence in Charlie’s Angels’
cinematic history: the Angels performing a big dance number, this time around to
a contemporary remix of Donna Summer’s
1979 disco hit “Bad Girls”. Here is a grounded action reboot that’s refreshingly
only grounded to a certain degree, thanks in part to Banks, who refuses to take the material all too seriously.
2019’s Charlie’s Angels redefines the word “grounded action reboot” in the
same humorous, tongue-in-cheek manner as the McG movies: the surface treatment might seem world-weary and less showy,
but beneath its modest look there are still some quirky laughs to be had. Having
made her directorial debut with a female-driven comedy Pitch Perfect 2 (2015), Banks’
sophomoric effort feels somewhat right up at her wheelhouse, fitting snugly in spiritually
another Pitch Perfect-style girls-night-out
comedy from her, featuring crime fighting women instead of an acapella troupe
but the same clever, pitch-perfect (pun intended) humor. The interplay between
the Angels and the script’s willingness to go off the rails and poke fun at the
contrast between their lives as crime fighters and everyday women make for some
tasty improvisational comedy, and they’re delivered with enough rapid verve and
natural ease to provide the required impact, like this one scene involving a
plot-heavy conversation that takes a drastic turn when someone starts rambling
about Michael Keaton and Birdman (2014).
And credit must be given to a handful of
well-rounded, non-stereotypical female characters on screen. Banks manages to find fresh, interesting
ways of telling basically the same old story, epitomized by the unique hero’s
journey arc given to the Angels’ latest addition Elena Houghlin. On the one
hand, Elena’s role as a hacker defecting to the good side and spilling the
beans makes her seem like a mere plot device than a character, but on the
other, there’s actually more human dimension and personality to her than her job
desk may suggest, perhaps even more than the other two Angels.
2019’s Charlie’s Angels has an endearing undercurrent of an underdog story
about a young woman whose eagerness to join the Angels stems from her desire to
get back at the men who demeans her and gain acceptance, and the fact that the
script always keeps Elena involved in the thick of the action throughout the
movie adds credibility to her arc. It’s refreshing to see a Charlie’s Angels movie that’s not afraid
to show a somewhat highly trained woman (a talented hacker, a competent
fighter) as imperfect, a welcome departure from the gravity-defying, superhero-esque
Angels of the McG era. In that way,
Elena is the ideal audience surrogate to offer its audience the perspective of
an outsider looking in at the Angels’ life of glamour and gadgetries, filled with
a childlike sense of awe and wonder. And the movie eventually resolves her underdog
arc in the most cathartic, hilarious fashion with a whiz-bang mid-credit scene featuring
a boatload of cameos from the who’s who in modern pop culture plus a former
Angel who’s (mild spoiler) been here before in the same capacity some sixteen
years ago.
2019’s Charlie’s Angels leans heavily on the power of sisterhood-type bond
to largely avoid the sexist cliché of a woman needing a male romantic interest to
feel fulfilled in life. Even if it eventually goes into the clichéd territory
in certain sections, it’s done only as means of building the Angel as a
character than their love story. It makes sense why Jane is the sole character here
to have a male romantic interest given her uptight, efficient it’s-all-about-the-mission
demeanor, and the movie wisely keeps the romantic tension between her and
Elena’s colleague/dude-in-distress Langston (Noah Centineo) at a flirtatious, one-time fling level, with a
greater emphasis on getting her to stop and smell the roses.
Besides the characters, the movie’s world-building
is fairly solid, believable and different enough from its predecessors. Banks draws some inspiration from the John Wick movies in the expansive,
intriguing way she reimagines the covert detective organization of Townsend
Agency as a CIA-type entity with infinite amounts of Angels and Bosleys than just
the standard three Angels plus a Bosley set-up. In this era of drones and
social media, it’s much easier to buy into the former idea. And furthermore, that
idea provides the movie with one of its coolest shots in the third act.
That aside, Banks does show some promising potential as a caper movie director.
Consider the scene where the Angels have to break into one of Brock’s facility to
steal a MacGuffin, a scene that turns out to be an inventive, equally fun variation
of the infiltration of the Red Star Headquarters sequence from Charlie’s Angels (2000) with the help of
a jazzy, smooth direction reminiscent of Steven
Soderbergh in his Ocean’s Eleven’s
(2001) heydays.
As an action picture in general though, Banks’ Charlie’s Angels pales in comparison to
the McG movies both narratively and
aesthetically.
The movie has a ramshackle action movie
plot that seems cobbled together from familiar parts in the McG movies. Banks’ script is slavishly derivative of the first Charlie’s Angels movie, both in terms of
the idea of a plot device surrounding a dangerous technology and the story
construction. 2019’s Charlie’s Angels
reeks of so much cliché-riddled laziness it’s only fitting the big twist would
involve the most annoyingly overused cliché in recent cinema’s history: the
mole in the organization. It’s made more annoying by the fact that it’s been
used in a Charlie’s Angels movie
before with Charlie’s Angels: Full
Throttle. Furthermore, it doesn’t take a genius to figure out who this mole
is, because (mild spoiler) it’s abundantly clear when the script decides to
sideline this character for much of the movie that this character is the mole, making
its various attempts at red herrings and misdirection pointless and convoluted.
And Charlie’s
Angels also makes a major mistake of playing things straight with the characterization
of its big bad: the heavily-tattooed assassin Hodak (Jonathan Tucker). First things first, any avid Angels fans would have noticed that Hodak is essentially a tired
rehashing of the Crispin Glover’s assassin
character Thin Man in the McG movies.
Hodak, much like the Thin Man, almost never speaks throughout the entire
proceedings and yet, he always gets the job done, with the exception that the
latter, despite his over-the-top demeanor, was actually an entertaining and compelling
character while the former is anything but. Even worse, he’s such an
uninteresting villain. He’s simply there just to look evil and that’s the
extent of his character. There’s no depth or any Thin Man-like hair-sniffing
antics whatsoever. His cold-blooded, efficient Bourne-type villainy doesn’t fit well in this universe as he often
grounds the movie’s fun momentum to a halt.
Like every franchise revivals in the
last few years, Charlie’s Angels cannot help but fall into the same trap of tampering
with its own legacy character. It is as if Banks
cannot decide whether to consider the Goff/Roberts show and the McG movies as part of canon or just ignore
them entirely, because the thing it does with the Angels’ iconic handler John
Bosley (Patrick Stewart) is not only
plain disrespectful to the previous John Bosleys, but it also makes no sense on
a logical standpoint. Here is a movie that suggests that the John Bosley in the
Goff/Roberts show and McG movies has always been Patrick Stewart all along, hence requiring
the Angels purists to pretend as if the
David Doyle and Bill Murray version respectively had never existed. And that’s too
much of a stretch to just go with it, made painfully obvious by the awkwardly-Photoshopped
images of Patrick Stewart standing
next to the likes of Jaclyn Smith
and Cameron Diaz.
But Charlie’s
Angels’ biggest shortcoming is perhaps its poorly-helmed action sequences. Banks’ relative inexperience in the
aforementioned genre clearly shows in her clunky direction. It’s an action
movie that feels like some shoddy, past its sell-by date riff on the Paul Greengrass’ documentary-style Bourne-era filmmaking, just without the
same level of finesse and visceral impact. Her Greengrass-esque approach feels more like an excuse to mask unconvincing
stunt work than a stylistic choice, since the action is put together in such a
slapdash way through constant use of quick cut editing to create an illusion of
movement that it’s borderline unwatchable at times and head-achingly boring for
the most part. It does nothing to buy into the idea of these Angels being
badass action heroines. And even the better-choreographed action gets
squandered by Banks’ preferred
filmmaking and editing style.
But it should not detract from the fact
that it’s got a talented ensemble cast who are all enjoyable in a popcorn movie
kind of way. Kristen Stewart, Ella Balinska and Naomi Scott are the latest trio to wear the Angels’ wings and they
are all perfectly-cast just for the tremendous chemistry alone. Their witty
banter, the occasional revealing heart-to-heart moments they share and just the
sisterhood element in their relationship in general feel so natural and genuine
it hardly feels like acting and more like a group of girls whose been friends
for a long period of time hanging out and someone happens to film it. But they
are just as good on their own terms.
Kristen
Stewart
provides a surprisingly strong showcase of her comedic chops as the sarcastic Sabina
Wilson. Stewart truly relishes
playing the Drew Barrymore role, combining
her anarchic charm and wry sense of humor to give undoubtedly the movie’s
liveliest performance, which is such a strange description for an actress known
to be so many things but “lively”. She is such a true sport, not hesitating to
poke fun at her own oft-criticized deadpan public image and in fact, turning it
into the strongest part about her acting. She has most of the funniest lines,
and most of them land thanks to her deadpan line delivery.
Relative newcomer Ella Balinska makes the giant and ultimately successful leap from
short movies to feature-length here by delivering a breakout turn as Jane Kano,
the ex-MI6 muscle of the group. Balinska
channels her inner Lucy Liu in some
way to confidently exude her character’s poise, elegance and all-round sheer badassery.
She truly earns the title “muscle of the group” because she brings immense
physicality to the table during the close-quarter combat sequences, which
shines through even if the editing style doesn’t quite do her any justice. Much
like Stewart, Charlie’s Angels proves that the 23-year old Brit should be cast in more action movies.
Meanwhile, Naomi Scott, who was recently Princess Jasmine in Aladdin (2019), is a sheer delight to
watch as the tech company’s systems engineer/ Angel wannabe Elena Houghlin,
radiating high energy and klutzy-cute sincerity reminiscent of a particular
ex-Angel Cameron Diaz in her prime. She
conveys the arc of a young woman trying to step out of her comfort zone with
such wide-eyed excitement she’s like the proverbial kid in a candy store. There’s
an inherently down-to-earth wholesomeness to Scott in this role and she never loses sight of the character, further
establishing herself as a likable underdog-type heroine that’s smart, funny,
occasionally insecure, yet root-worthy.
Elizabeth
Banks
lends a good deal of authority and quick wit to breathe new life into the
Bosley legacy as Rebekah Bosley. Banks
manages to take what’s typically a thankless sidekick role from the TV show and
the previous two movies and, by having a female Bosley, turn it into a fully-realized
character, similar to what Dame Judi
Dench did in redefining the predominantly male and equally thankless
sidekick role of M in the recent James
Bond movies. Sassier and a much more empowered as well as compelling damsel
over the character’s past one-note, dudes in-distress portrayal, she is by far
the franchise’s best Bosley.
But the male cast members deserve some credit
for giving as much effort to the table as the ladies even in smaller roles. Patrick Stewart (totally unrelated to
the similarly surnamed Kristen Stewart)
is the second acting talent in the movie to play a Bosley, and in true Patrick Stewart fashion, he is an effortlessly
charismatic presence as the venerable John Bosley. Djimon Hounsou is the third and last actor here to play a Bosley,
and he offers his signature gravitas
in a brief, quasi-cameo turn as Edgar
Bosley. Sam Claflin complements his
good rich-guy looks with entertaining B-movie ham as Elena’s employer Alexander
Brock.
CONCLUSION:
Charlie’s
Angels
serves up a fun, breezy and constantly diverting reboot with more than enough
sheer girl power, healthy dose of humor and infectious chemistry from its trio
of Angels to make up for a formulaic script and some lackluster action
sequences.
Score: 7.5/10
No comments:
Post a Comment