Before the new movie Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle came out, I couldn't think of one particular reason to truly despise the music-video and film director Joseph McGinty Nichols. (I absolutely refuse to call him by that silly fake name of his.) However, he's given me one great motive. At one point in the sequel, we see Cameron Diaz pull a baby calf out of a cow, splattering blood all over. That's when I knew I despised Mr. Nichols.
Think about it. When the new Charlie's Angels movie comes to your mind, what do you expect to see? A cow giving birth? The only basis for the scene is not that it serves the story; the reason Mr. Nichols shows us this is because he can.
The rest of CA:FT is no better. Where the original Charlie's Angels had an air (hell, maybe just a whiff) of campiness, the sequel has an air of stupidity. For some reason, director Nichols and the writers, John August and Cormac & Marianne Wibberley, have decided to make this a brainless parody of...what? Popular culture? Television? Movies? Maybe you can tell me, because my head was aching too hard after watching this to pinpoint a certain target.
There is a plot hidden somewhere in this movie. The Angels - Dylan (Drew Barrymore, who also produced this dreck), Natalie (Diaz) and Alex (Lucy Liu) - save a U.S. Marshal (Robert Patrick) from people who want control of the U.S. Witness Protection Program. However, they have to deal with the head villain: Madison Lee (Demi Moore), a former Angel. There are also subplots with each Angel's boyfriend: Dylan has to deal with her ex, a crazed Irish mobster. Alex's boyfriend, an action star (Matt LeBlanc), tells all of Alex's secrets to her clueless father (John Cleese; don't ask...really, don't ask). Natalie's boyfriend (Luke Wilson) is planning on popping a question to her. But does any of it matter? Of course not.
The shoestring of a plot is an excuse to show Barrymore, Diaz, Liu and Moore in the skimpiest outfits possible. Now, don't get me wrong: all four of these women, at one time in their careers, were extremely attractive. However, Barrymore and Diaz seem tired (look at the bags around their eyes) and bored with their roles. Liu and Moore look fine, but their bodies are the only thing worth noting.
And that's the problem, when we come to the raw deal. If I want soft-core porn (not that I do, but you understand), I can buy it; I don't want to watch it with a large audience. The Charlie's Angels movies, this one especially, are just soft-core porn. As the end credits roll, we see a totally unrelated scene where the Angels wash a car. Of course, everyone is wet, shaking around; the whole thing is filmed in slow motion. It made me feel dirty, frankly speaking.
The whole movie is riddled with problems. I didn't really expect a brilliant script boosted with strong performances, but something close would have been nice. Instead, the script is more like a musical, bridging the badly directed scenes of action and dancing together into an uneven line.
Yeah, you read that right. Dancing. For some reason, there are nearly as many scenes of dancing from the Angels as action. So, the question is why? Why should these women dance to an MC Hammer song? Why should Cameron Diaz lead a dance at a high school reunion? The answer is even more simple than the question. These women are idiots. Your IQ is bound to drop at least 15 points after watching CA:FT.
This is far more than brainless action. I like a brainless action movie, and that's what I expected. I didn't expect a cataclysm of chaos on a movie screen. Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle is not a movie; it is an experience, akin to that of having a root canal without anesthesia. It's too loud, it's too painful and you'll walk out dazed and confused.
Everything about this is a sham. The whole rigamarole about Demi Moore's comeback is a load of hooey. Moore appears in four scenes of this movie. If you've seen the coming attractions preview, you've seen Moore's body of work. What's even more aggravating is that for about 75 minutes, Nichols films Moore's role as if we'll be surprised when we find out that she's the main villain. I guess for anyone who doesn't own a television, read the entertainment section of their newspaper, read entertainment-style magazines or doesn't watch coming attractions (and still wants to see this movie), this is a huge surprise.
The rest of the cast is, for lack of a better word, wasted. Bernie Mac is the new Bosley (replacing Bill Murray, whose character was adopted...I guess), and he salvages only so much. The same goes for LeBlanc, Wilson, Cleese and Justin Theroux (as Dylan's psycho ex), who are all fine actors, but given so little to work with.
The worst part is that Nichols tries to parody everything possible. You'll find parodies of Cape Fear, Mission: Impossible 2, The Matrix (enough with the slo-mo action, already!) and Singin' In The Rain. Why? Because Nichols has the money to make fun of these movies for no good reason. There is also an abundance of songs from the 1980s that only the popular kids in high school liked. These songs, by the way, suck. Thus, so does the entire soundtrack, which is too loud. Bring earplugs, because you'll need them.
If it wasn't for a few times when I snickered or smiled, Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle would get no stars from me. So, to paraphrase the prolific critic Roger Ebert: If you see Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle, I'm not allowing you to read another one of my reviews again.
Josh Spiegel is an entertainment reporter for the Web Devil. Reach him at joshua.spiegel@asu.edu.
