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| Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle |
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  (5/10)
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Runtime: 105 |
| Public Rating: 8.90 (1299 votes) |
Director: McG |
MPAA Rating:  |
| Genre: Action, Comedy |
Year: 2003 |
| Writer(s): John August, Simon Kinberg |
| Distributor: Columbia Pictures |
| Reviewed by: The Moose |
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Columbia Pictures, who had huge success in 2002 with such films as Spider-Man, Men In Black II, and xXx, is having a rather up and down year with films released in 2003. Sure they found success with such films as Darkness Falls, Anger Management, and Daddy Day Care but they also found their share of problems with flops like Basic and Hollywood Homicide. Bad Boys II looks to raise up summer hopes for the studio but their other two releases, Gigli and S.W.A.T., don’t give the rest of the movie-going public much confidence in the studio this summer. So it is no wonder the studio gave Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle, the surprise hit of 2000, a huge market push and a prime weekend slot right before the Independence Day weekend. As part of the big marketing push, the studio is bringing temporarily retired actress Demi Moore back to the big screen. Did anybody really notice she left in the first place? Granted she can be a gifted actress but she isn’t really known for her box office success but the public seems to love the idea of Demi Moore returning and the ads just make the boys drool. But will this result in a truly quality film, which the first somewhat lacked, or will is all this advertising just gilding the sequel?
The story goes; well there really isn’t much of a story. If you are going to see Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle looking for a quality story then you are going to see the wrong movie. The story, as far as one can figure, has the three angels once again fighting bad guys while wearing revealing outfits and blowing things up in the process. This time around they are in search of a pair of rings. These rings, nicknamed “Halo”, hold a secret code that when putting the two rings together can place the names of everyone placed under the witness protection program. This is not the least of the angels’ problems. Dylan, who was placed under the witness protection program before becoming an angel, discovers her old boyfriend Seamus has been released from jail and is after her for ratting him out for a murder that sent him to jail for eight years. If that wasn’t enough, fallen angel Madison Lee has plans for the trio as well. Seem complicated? It is but the film just tries to be as fun as possible and doesn’t really care about realism in the plot. The story doesn’t matter at all for this film which makes it all the better. One should just go into this film and forget about the plot, character development, and anything else that really matters about the quality of a film.
The cast of Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle has a huge variety of colorful characters with the three ladies from the original returning to reprise their roles. Cameron Diaz, who blames Natalie Cook, does a so-so job with her role. She doesn’t really improve on the way she played the character in the first film but hurts it more. All the dumb blonde jokes made about her character or her acting like a dumb blonde gets tiresome very quickly. You think they would have used up all those jokes in the first film but guess not. Lucy Liu returns as Alex Munday but she isn’t as focused on as the other angels, which is quite a shame. Drew Barrymore reprises her role as Dylan Sanders. Her character is more of the focus of the film and Barrymore really works well with the role. She makes it her own which works on amazing levels. Much of the marketing or publicity of Full Throttle has focused on the return of Demi Moore and it was well deserved. Demi Moore was quite a delightful surprise as the fallen angel Madison Lee. She fights perfectly with the role and seems to have fun with the character. There were some disappointing things about her character, as good as Moore was. Madison only gets a slight introduction near the beginning and isn’t really seen again till the end. Another problem was the fact that they confuse the audience by making her seem sort of like a lesbian with nearly kissing Cameron Diaz’s character twice during the film. What was up with that? Other then those problems, her character was absolutely wonderful. Bernie Mac, who replaces Bill Murray as Bosley, is hilarious. There could not have been a more perfect replacement then him. Murray made the Bosley character a hoot in the first films and Mac continues the wonderfully funny charm as Bosley’s brother. Crispin Glover once again reprises his role as the creepy Thin Man, even if it is only briefly. Glover truly makes the character creepy but funny at the same time, which is very hard to do.
Overall, Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle is a fun ride even if you do tend to get motion sickness every now and then. The sequel seems to try too hard to live up to the hype and the charm of the original but seems too much at times. Outside the usual problems of no actual story or character development, the film has other problems as well. The CGI is the film is absolutely horrible. Many of the sequences that use computer animation techniques are pretty obvious and they just make the film look pathetic. Some of the action sequences were also ridiculous. During the motorcycle chase scene, the director uses slow motion to show the angels dodging bullets just like in The Matrix Reloaded but he fails to pull the effect off correctly that the obvious parody looks totally absurd. If you are going to parody good effects then do them correctly. The pacing for the film was horrible. At times the feature seems to slow and at other times it is too fast with all the action sequences. There was no consistency at all which hurts the overall effect. The fight sequences between Cameron and Demi as well as those delightful cameos make the film worthwhile. The best cameo out of the bunch has to be from Demi’s ex-husband Bruce Willis. It is not a funny role but it is an absolute treat, so pay attention for it. Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle will not win any awards or much critical praise but that shouldn’t matter much to the core audience. Enjoy a good old summer popcorn flick while you cool off from the heat of the summer.
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