Review: Charlie’s Angels

A secret agency known as the Townsend Agency recruits young women to train as field agents named ‘Angels’. The agency’s head Bosley (Patrick Stewart) is about to retire, replaced by a new Bosley (Elizabeth Banks). Angels Sabina (Kristen Stewart) and Jane (Ella Balinska) are on a new mission in Hamburg that unites them with tech programmer Elena (Naomi Scott) who tries to tell her sleazy boss (Nat Faxon) that the new ballyhooed energy device has dangerous side-effects. Said sleazy boss (he’s middle management) doesn’t give a shit, and when Elena tries to blow the whistle, a creepy assassin (Jonathan Tucker) attempts to rub her out. That’s when she’s saved by Sabina and Jane. Now the trio have to team up in order to stop the device as a weapon on the black market. Djimon Hounsou plays another Bosley, Chris Pang plays an Asian-Australian crim who thinks he’s hot shit, and Sam Claflin plays the dude-bro tech company head.

 

The world didn’t need another “Charlie’s Angels” film, hell it didn’t even need “Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle”. Thankfully, this 2019 version of “Charlie’s Angels” from director/producer/writer/co-star Elizabeth Banks manages to be a pretty good “Charlie’s Angels” movie. It does especially well by playing up the action/spy aspect rather than going the spoofy comic route of the shiny shampoo commercial-looking McG films from the early 00s. I didn’t actually mind those films, in fact I don’t think they were much worse than this film from what I remember of them. I can hardly believe it, but I actually rather enjoyed this film…the total opposite reaction I expected going into it. I was expecting another “Ghostbusters” reboot/remake situation (not that I was one of the misogynist creeps who railed against that film purely for being female-centric. No, it just wasn’t much good as a film) or the terrible “Ocean’s 8”. Instead I got a fairly solid popcorn action/spy flick for the #MeToo era.

 

I normally can’t stand Kristen Stewart, both on and off screen I’ve found her to give off the vibe that she’s deeply uncomfortable with her chosen profession and everything it requires of her. I also hadn’t felt she had more than one facial expression (which tends to look like a mixture of ‘Resting bitch face’ and ‘Open-mouthed dopey boredom’) in her arsenal. Here she seems a heck of a lot less uncomfortable on screen, and at times – amazingly – she’s trying to do an impression of someone actually enjoying themselves. She’s doing about the best I think she’s capable of. I was genuinely surprised and pleased by her efforts. Even better though, is Alicia Vikander-lookalike Naomi Scott, who is immensely likeable and charismatic. She’s got ‘it’ in spades and if all is fair in the world, will become a star at some point. We also get good support work from an amusingly sleazy Nat Faxon, a hilarious Patrick Stewart (clearly having a whale of a time), and the chief creative force behind the film, Elizabeth Banks as Bosley. She dips in and out of the film a bit too infrequently for my liking, but that’s because I just plain really like her on screen. Djimon Hounsou keeps having his talents wasted a bit in smallish roles I think, though Jonathan Tucker gives an effective, silent henchman performance (Seemingly inspired by Crispin Glover in the McG films, with a little Robert Patrick thrown in).

 

I’m not sure why Banks saves all of the celebrity cameos for the end credits, but then the film itself is already a tad too long. On the plus side, the film looks good without going over-the-top ‘pretty’ like the McG films did. As for the film’s rather feminine POV (“9 to 5” meets 007, perhaps), anyone who has a problem with it is kind of an idiot. It’s “Charlie’s Angels” for crying out loud. It’s about women, right?

 

Ten minutes too long, and the MacGuffin is a bit of a clichéd disappointment. Outside of that, this is a fun, if not especially memorable bit of action/spy entertainment. What a pleasant surprise this was.

 

Rating: B-