This 2019 movie is the best version of Charlie’s Angels, so far. It’s a supremely charming combination of topical sci-fi adventure (about broadcast electricity), plus engagingly witty action-comedy that cleverly, and very skilfully, avoids all the silly parody, or the often dumbly contrived jokes, that marred previous cinema efforts in this franchise. But still maintains levels of good humour now inventively centred on the characters, instead of merely spoofy caricatures for its crime-busting trio.
It’s also the first ANGELS scenario to be written and directed by a woman, so this distinctly benefits from socially-aware actresses keen to ‘make a difference’ here with roundly feminist attitudes. The result delivers plenty of great fun with freshly stylish pragmatism. This is not only an admittedly-laudable, and next-generation, project that’s aimed at creating or reframing positive role-models. It shrugs off nearly all the faults of earlier gleefully-daft cinema versions and re-imagines the TV show’s basic format.
Elizabeth Banks, who also co-stars here as a key BOSSley ‘lieutenant’ (other ‘Bosleys’ are played by Djimon Hounsou, and Patrick Stewart), directs this re-fashioned media property so that her upgraded movie sequel is more than simply an updated expression of this usually awkwardly-flawed property (see 2011’s merely average TV remake). Newly developed for international scale, it’s an inventive attempt at re-branding all inherent qualities of the small-screen 1976 original’s cheesecake formula, viably re-vamped to be in tune with post-modern ‘sisterhood’ concerns.
