CHARLIE'S ANGELS (2000) THE ROAD TO HELL IS PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONS a movie review by Luc-Rock Paquin THANK GOD MY RENTAL WAS FREE I sometimes get my hands on coupons for free rentals at my local video store. Whenever I get this chance, I am more willing to rent something that I am not 100% sure to like. Such was the case with Charlie's Angels. I had heard mixed reviews about it, but I wanted to rent a "movie" rather than a "film", so I took a chance. It turns out I should have rented something else. Sometimes, even a lower-than-average movie can be enjoyed if one has very low expectations of it. Mine weren't low enough to enjoy this feature-debut from director Joseph McGinty Nichol (a.k.a. "McG"). BIGGER ISN'T ALWAYS BETTER The biggest problem of the movie is that McG strongly believes that "bigger is better". This goes against my own philosophy of movies (and of life, actually), which is "just because you can doesn't mean that you should". McG's obsession with "over the top" scenes is evident right from the start. The first scene is, simply put, quite ridiculous. The excessive use of slow-motion to feature the beautiful actresses make the scene feel more like a commercial advertising the actresses than like an movie introduction. Joseph "McG" Nichol INFLUENCE OR OUTRIGHT COPY? There are several production featurettes on the DVD, which allowed me to get a glimpse of the director and the vision he had of the movie. He admitted that he was strongly influenced by James Bond, The Matrix and Austin Powers. While the latter influence is only evident in a scene or two, the "influence" from the other two movies feels more like an obsession. Don't get me wrong, I love Bond films, but I don't like it when directors confuse "influence" and "copy". The "Matrix"-style fights have no place in Charlie's Angels. The reason why the characters in The Matrix could do these stunts was because they were living in a DREAM WORLD! Such is not the case with the angels. There was only one scene with a Matrix-like effect that was downright awesome and that is the "magic bullet" scene, where we follow a bullet in slow motion on its way to one of the angels. Another outright copy is the "Mission: Impossible"-style computer room. While I command the imagination of the artistic director and the set decorator, they should do a serious reality check, as there probably doesn't exist a single mainframe computer room as ridiculous as the one featured in the movie. That set would have been perfect for a movie like Batman, where we're dealing with a fantasy world, but it just doesn't fit in Angels. Tim Curry has one of the funniest scenes in the movie TOM AND TIM STEAL THE SHOW Still, the movie does have a few positives aspects. Drew Barrymore's beau, Tom Green (Road Trip, Freddy Got Fingered), has a few good scenes as "The Chad", self-proclaimed "Captain of the Love Boat". The best and most hilarious scene of the movie is without a doubt the "Sumo Wrestling" scene where Tim Curry (The Hunt for Red October, The Rocky Horror Picture Show, Clue) and Bill Murray (Groundhog Day, Rushmore, Tootsie) wear rubber suits and battle it out. It's too bad that the scene that was supposed to introduce this one ended up on the floor of the cutting room. Originally, after Roger Corwin (Curry) challenges John Bosley (Murray) to a battle of wits, we were supposed to see them playing a game of "Marco Polo" in the pool (which I saw in the deleted scenes of the DVD and thought was very funny). When Bosley wins the game, Corwin then challenges to a "mano a mano" fight, which is the Sumo Wrestling scene. Since that middle scene was cut, we go from a "battle of wits" challenge to a wrestling match, which doesn't work as well as the original gag. In contrast, the worst scene of the movie has to be the race car chase through the city streets. Not only does it not fit with the rest of the movie, but the editing of that scene is just atrocious, with cameras changing every .5 second! Like much of the movie, this scene feels "tacked on". Oh, you want a car chase? Let me add one in, even though it won't make any sense (the driver of the car being chased by the angels is none other the hired killer they are pursuing ...right.) Billy Murray and the Angels Let's change subjects for a while and talk about the actors. When I first heard that they were making this movie, I was somewhat puzzled when they announced that Bill Murray would be in it. I like Murray, but action movies are not really his forte, and yet, he managed to deliver a strong performance that is a mix of serious acting and comedy. THE ANGELS: ADEQUATE AT BEST The actresses who played the "angels" were adequate, but nothing more. The better of the three was Lucy Liu ("Ally McBeal", Payback, Play It to the Bone), and coincidentally, her character was the more silent of the three. Her strongest asset is that she has played these kinds of roles before and she didn't feel out of character. Charlize Theron would have been a great choice The worst was Drew Barrymore (E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, Scream, The Wedding Singer). Her performance was sub-par, but I suspect it has more to do with bad dialogue than bad acting, such as the scene where she's naming figures while fighting: "and that was 'Kicking your ass'". Finally Cameron Diaz (Being John Malkovich, There's Something About Mary, My Best Friend's Wedding) does okay, but I think that if the casting directors wanted a bad-ass tall blonde, they should have gone with Charlize Theron (The Cider House Rules, The Devil's Advocate, That Thing You Do!). Anyone who has seen Theron as "Helga Svelgen" in her 1996 debut in 2 Days in the Valley knows what I'm talking about. She only has a few lines of dialogue, but she played a mean sexy killing machine.   Barrymore and Diaz dress as men: a disturbing image SOME THINGS WERE EYE-PLEASING... Credit has to be given to David Klassen and Richard Mays, the art directors, for creating some visually-stunning scenes. Apart from the mainframe computer scene mentioned above, the rest of the movie was a delight for the eyes, while still remaining within the realms of reality. ...OTHERS WERE NOT I have no such kudos for the makeup artists, since I don't recall ever seeing such as bad disguise as the one where Diaz and Barrymore's characters dress as men. That scene was quite disturbing for me and I don't think I'll ever be able to look at either of them the same way. I kept expecting the actresses' breast to explode or something... MY COMMENTS FOR MCG On a final note, I have two things to say to McG. One: a soundtrack is supposed to be coherent and support the movie. Some songs were totally out of place/time (such as Deee-Lite's "Groove Is In The Heart") and some were overtaking the movie (Blur's "Song 2", Prodigy's "Smack My Bitch Up"). Two: there is a difference between being sexy and just showing cleavage. Throughout the movie, I kept expecting the actresses' breasts to be used as weapons, since they were shown in so many scenes. I said it before and I'll say it again: just because you can doesn't mean you should. Reviewed on May 19, 2001

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