Drew Barrymore, Cameron Diaz and Lucy Liu in Charlie's Angels

MOVIE INFORMATION

With 10 as a must-see, Jack gives this film a: Stars: Drew Barrymore, Cameron Diaz and Lucy Liu Director: McG Rated: PG-13, with bloodless violence, innuendo Length: 92 minutes

ROCHESTERCRITIQUE

Having seen this film, how would you rate it? 10 5 9 4 8 3 7 2 6 1

By Jack Garner
Democrat and Chronicle

(November 3, 2000) -- After the disasters of The Mod Squad, The Beverly Hillbillies and The Brady Bunch, I'd about given up on jump-starting yesterday's television for today's movie audiences.

Then I saw Charlie's Angels. With flippancy and high-energy action -- and with their tongues planted in just the right spot in their cheeks -- Drew Barrymore, Cameron Diaz and Lucy Lu have earned their halos.

Yes, the new Charlie's Angels is silly, brain-dead and implausible. But this hip-chick Bond flick is also the most fun I've had at the movies this season.

Maybe it was a case of diminished expectations. Or maybe producer and star Barrymore made the right decisions -- in casting, tone and choice of director -- for this campy comic book of a movie.

Charlie's Angels marks the directorial debut of McG -- and though I have no idea how to pronounce his name, I admire the way the music video filmmaker generates carefree action.

I knew I was in for an entertaining 90 minutes as soon as I saw the film's opening shot: The camera pans right, into the clouds of Columbia Pictures' logo, to reveal a plane flying at us. The camera then slides inside the plane.

Before you know it, a bomb attempt is foiled and the three angels are rollicking in a speedboat on the ocean below. It's as exciting an opening as you'd ever get from 007.

As on the show, the three are in the employ of the mysterious, never-seen Charlie. They take orders from his voice over a speakerphone. Acting as go-between is the amiable Bosley, played here by Bill Murray -- which says something about the film's irreverence.

Here the women must help a kidnapped computer genius (Sam Rockwell). The situation leads the trio into mind games with a clever corporate type (Tim Curry) and into more lethal combat with a slimy henchman (the always-spooky Crispin Glover).

The plot, though, is just a ready hat-rack on which to hang a lot of amusing bits as Charlie's girls go undercover as belly dancers, race-car drivers and geishas, and, not as convincingly, in male drag.

Natalie (Diaz) is an inept Soul Train dancer but a vigorous warrior. Dylan (Barrymore) is the sexiest and most confident, oozing attitude and enthusiasm. Alex (Liu) is a techno-freak and martial artiste par excellence.

In both sex appeal and physicality they're impressive, generating a believable chemistry as comrades.

Luke Wilson, Matt LeBlanc and Tom Green are less impressive, with little to do, as the men in the Angels' lives. It seems they achieve the superficial, almost-invisible status women usually get in male action films.

Much of the action is enhanced by Barrymore's reported dictum that the Angels not use guns. Some of the baddies are armed, but the Angels always kick, chop, swirl and connive their way out of fixes.

And the action is visceral, imaginative and witty, thanks to the choreography of Cheung-Yan Yuen, the Hong Kong master behind The Matrix.

Who knew female empowerment could be so much fun?