Charlie's Angels Reviewed: November 7th, 2000 Website: http://www.spe.sony.com/movies/charliesangels       Movie Snob       Safety Jeff   {NOTE: I think we ALL agree that the Kansas Personalized Liscense Plate Rating System (trademark) was THE movie rating system we'd been looking for. Unfortunately, one of my fans got a weeeee little too attached to Movie Snob. I have settled a harassment case out of court, and, unfortunately, the terms of the agreement dictate that I retool the rating system so it reflects some of this fan's crazed ideas. I apologize for the inconvenience. I am very optimistic, and think I've managed to overcome her craziness and make a real usable rating system. You fans are the best for hanging with me -Movie Snob} "The Brady Bunch", "Mission Impossible", "The Flintstones", "Mod Squad", "The Adams Family": mediocre television series of ages past, resurrected into big budget, small minded movie efforts. Time to put yet another log on the fire; "Charlie's Angels" has hit the big screen, proving once and for all that originality is dead Hollywood. Take every negative adjective from the dictionary (some suggestions include: horrid, pitiful, insipid, ill-conceived). Now put all of those adjectives into a blender, add money, and puree. The resulting mess is "Charlie's Angels." I am not even sure that what I saw meets the criteria of a movie. It would be more accurate to say I witnessed a two hour Nokia cell phone commercial. In fact, cell phones feature heavily the plot, such as it is. An evil mastermind intends to seize a series of telecommucations satellites in order to trace a cell phone call. Huh?? I don't know how to break this to the writers, but people have been tracing phone calls for decades. It's not hard and certainly doesn't require corporate espionage. But hey, pointing out a single flaw in this film is akin to isolating a hydrogen atom on the Hindenberg. Not surprisingly, this is the debut directing effort for Joseph McGinty Mitchell, aka McG. It also comes as no surprise that he built his career directing Gap ads and music videos. Cameron Diaz, Lucy Liu and Drew Barrymore are the Angels, and Bill Murray plays Bosley. The film attempts to mask its lack of substance with slick, "Matrix" inspired special effects, but at the end of the day, it's still George McFly from "Back to the Future" (Crispin Glover) kickboxing with the little girl from "E.T." (Barrymore). I found myself laughing at the exaggerated, cartoon-like movements of these two faux martial artists. Apparently, anybody can be Jackie Chan these days. I'm waiting for Bruce Lee's movies to be remade using chimps. Defenders of the film (could there possibly be any?) might respond that it attempts to satirize the original series. I will answer in the simplest possible way: "Charlie's Angels" is not funny, not intentionally anyway. It's innuendo-driven, self-deprecating humor comes off flat, particularly when paired with slit throats and exploding helicopters. I hear that "Sanford & Son: the Movie" is due to be released for Christmas, starring Tom Cruise as Fred Sanford. It will feature a high-tech junk yard fight sequence between Fred and Lamont (Emmanuel Lewis). That will be followed by movie versions of "Alf", "Head of the Class", and "Growing Pains" this summer, all starring Tim Curry. I can hardly wait. This one is LUCKY to get an "H" from the Movie Snob   . Simply stated, amazing unplanned and unrehearsed improvisations by the acting talent of Charlie's Angels took what was already a very good script and made it a true mega-powerhouse. Bill Murray of course, did not need to improvise. As is always the case with the "Safest screenplay picker in Hollywood", Murray played yet another character (Bosley) entirely flushed out by script writers and director. As we all know, real life Bill Murray is an overly-serious, dour man with a poor understanding of humor delivery. He relies heavily on writers to tell him what to say and on a director who can tell him how to say it (i.e. "Bill, crook your head a bit to the left when you say that joke"). With Charlie's Angels Murray picks the right movie project again: his Bosley character works BIG time. Anglels Drew Barrymore(Dylan), Cameron Diaz(Natalie), and Lucy Liu(Alex), on the other hand, pull off some of the biggest improv risks I have ever seen in film. At first I thought much of the shakey camera work was intentional, but if you see the movie a third or fourth time you begin to notice that the camera moves like this because the CAMERAMAN HAS BEEN TAKEN OFF GUARD, TRYING TO KEEP UP WITH THE LEADING LADIES SIZZLING HOT IMPROV MOVES! For example, an openning sequence has Berrymore on a passenger jetliner headed to Philadelphia in order to satiate here grave hankering for a Philly Cheese Steak Sandwhich. A copy of the origninal screenplay details an exciting landing sequence where Berrymore is supposed to SLOWLY grab 3 large peices of carry-on luggage from nearby overhead bins. The wonderful tension between her and the entire back of the plane waiting to deplane drips off the page. Then she was to emotionally rush past the arrival/departure television monitors for a nearby sub sandwhich stand, completely ignoring her need to catch a close connection to Allentown, PA. Most wouldn't dare touch such safe and saucy screenwiting. Lucky for us, Berrymore is not most people. In the final cut of Charlie's Angels, we never get to Philadelphia! Berrymore... without any forethought or rehearsal, suddenly grabs the foil sitting next to her on the jetliner (note: they actually were flying this jet to Philly to make the shots look realistic). Next thing you know she and the foil are JUMPING OUT OF THE PLANE! This is one of those many moments you see the aforementioned camera jiggle. The original script shows that Berrymore and the foil were supposed to have a scripted conversation about cell phone usage on takeoffs and landings. It's obvious the cameraman is TOTALLY surprised by Berrymore's hostage taking improvisation. As the saying goes, brave choices beget good luck. As it turns out, the foil in real life turned out to be a digruntled Screen Actor's Guild(SAG) member who was ACTUALLY PLANNING TO BLOW UP THE JETLINER! Luckily for the makers of Charlie's Angels, a citizen ofTrenton, NJ caught the fall of both foil and Berrymore on home video. In that footage which ends up in the final cut of the movie, you can clearly see a bomb strapped about the foil's chest. The rest of the scene is simple filming of raw, totally unscripted, honest human response to crisis. Lucy Lui parachutes into the scene (she'd been flying the jetline but you don't see this in the film) to save a friend in need, not because she's trying to "Look Cool" which Hollywood is too often guilty of THESE DAYS. If you are Cameron Diaz, coincidentally driving a powerboat on your day off, and you notice two friends falling from the sky, OF COURSE you try to position your boat beneath them. We all would. I found myself saying this time and time again during this film: "Wow! That is so true. We all would do what that angel just did." But it is the genius of the initial improvisation that is so impressive. Not only does Berrymore have the acting guts to jump from the plane, but she has the bravery to follow her acting instincts and arrive on the set dressed as L L Cool J! Fanzines now are reporting that many people working the food carts near her trailer told Berrymore "That's a dumb idea to dress like L L Cool J. Don't do it!" Lucky for all of us she ignored the advice of her fastfood critics. Berrymore described the choice. "Yeah, when I started that morning I just thought to myself, woah. I think I'd have a greater motivation for a Philly Cheese Steak Sandwhich if I looked like L L Cool J. It's hard for me to explain why I thought this. It just felt really right. And then I got WAY lucky with the plane jump, which popped into my mind initially as a kind of a joke to myself. I do that lots. Tell myself funny jokes. On this day I just took the joke one leap further[Berrymore laughs to herself]. In retrospect I don't make the jumping choice if I'm dressed as Dylan. No-one would have found it remotely believable for my Dylan character to take that foil hostage. So I got pretty lucky. For this movie at least, a divine force seemed to be guiding my improvisational choices. When I accidentally kicked a helicopter pilot in the face while I was repositioning myself for a shot, the pilot lost consciousness and the helicopter really swerved. What was scripted to be a gentle local weather report shot just sort of morphed into this cool midair fight scene. Luck. Dumb luck." If it's not already obvious, DON'T EVER TRY TO IMPROV ANYTHING YOURSELF. Berrymore can leap from a plane because she obviously has extensive training in jumping out of things. NEVER EVER try anything dangerous yourself. That's why they make movies like Charlie's Angels: to show us what NOT to do. The army could EASILY use this as one of its training videos. ITS THAT GOOD! Charlie Angels is my favorite movie of all time (so far). I give it a rating of 5 Safety Helmets.