By Chaos, Freelance Writer
From left Alex (Lucy Lui), Natalie (Cameron Diaz) and Dylan (Drew Barrymore) in a scene from the movie 'Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle', now playing in theatres islandwide. - Contributed
CHARLIE'S ANGELS: Full Throttle is essentially your summer, popcorn, no-brainer movie. Just like the first one, there is very little in the way of a plot, some explosions, some Matrix-style fight scenes, a few laughs and a few happenings which are an insult to an intelligence which should have been turned off long before you sat in your seat in the theatre. Long before.
Female empowerment was supposed to be an issue, but I will not get into that.
A sequel to the Charlie's Angels of three years ago, Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle is not an intellectual movie. It appeals to the baser instincts and has loads of fun doing so, and so should you. Lot's of bare skin, kinetic fight scenes and, funnily enough, the meanings of fun and the value of friendship are what are important here and are what make for a decent summer flick.
The plot apparently all the United States' witness protection programme's information is encoded on two titanium rings (it helps if you saw the video to Pink's Feel Good Time and the five animated Angel's adventures, which are still available on-line helps, but not essential). So the film opens with the Angels in Mongolia rescuing a United States Marshall (Robert Patrick again cruelly under-used, as he has been since Terminator 2) in a variety of clichéd, yet still sexy, ways.
One highly improbable escape follows another, as do the computer-imaging and wire work assisted fight scenes in almost delirious succession, interrupted only by whacked-out costume changes and goofy/sexy dance numbers much like the first and attempts to get one of the 'points' of the movie across. Friendship.
Natalie (Cameron Diaz) is moving in with her boyfriend from the first film, played by sad sack Luke Wilson, and Dylan (Drew Barrymore) is worried that she is going to leave her and Alex (Lucy Liu) behind for a life in the suburbs. What follows is a fairly amusing fantasy sequence with a number of well-known personalities turning up as Angels. Later on, the bond between the three is further tested when Dylan's ex-boyfriend and ex-convict Seamus O'Grady (Justin Theroux) appears. Let's just say he still has issues with his former girlfriend.
Then there is the 'fun' aspect. The girls spend so much time smiling that Cameron Diaz, in particular, reminds at time of Batman's Joker. They break out into impromptu dance numbers and when it is revealed that one of the Angels used to have a name involving the word 'ass', a horrendous set of quips follow.
BPDY PARTS
There is so much jiggling body parts and bare flesh, it gets ridiculous at times. Sure, it starts off as sexy but as time wears by, there are a few scenes that are more hilarious than titillating. Demi Moore as ex-Angel Madison has one hell of a body, especially for a 40-something but one is distracted by how unemotional her face is.
Director McG made Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle very referential, almost to a fault. Television's CSI and movies such as Raiders of the Lost Ark, Singin' in the Rain, Grease, Cape Fear, Night of the Hunter, Austin Powers, Batman and, of course, The Matrix, come in for the treatment. Movies that have not even been released yet seem to come in for the treatment as well, in the form of Tomb Raider 2: The Cradle of Life.
Bernie Mac is also underused as Bosley, as is his relationship to the first film's Bosley, the very Caucasian Bill Murray apparently they are brothers by adoption a theme never exploited to its full comic potential.
Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle fails as a sequel in that, while it might have been a fun watch, it was not quite as fun as the original and lacked some of the scenes from the first film that made it special such as Lucy Liu's 'Dominatrix' scene or Barrymore's 'And that's kicking your ass' with her hands behind her back moment. It can be watched and enjoyed; just do not have very high expectations.
