Review: Charlie's Angels (2019)

Charlie's Angels (2019)

Rated PG-13 for action/violence, language and some suggestive material

Score: 3 out of 5

From the moment of its conception, the Charlie's Angels franchise has always been an encapsulation of the pop-feminist trends of the moment. The original show, which ran from 1976 to 1981, was rooted in the women's liberation movement of the '70s, its protagonists being three women who got sick of being demeaned as police officers and got jobs as private investigators where they could put their talents to better use... while also looking extremely sexy doing so. The 2000 film starring Drew Barrymore, Cameron Diaz, and Lucy Liu was just as rooted in the age of "girl power" a la the Spice Girls, playing up both the skimpy clothes the Angels wore and their high-kicking, acrobatic fighting style. The short-lived 2011 reboot had the Angels as hard-edged tough chicks who drank, stole cars, and mouthed off just like the boys. And finally, we come to 2019, a time when feminism arguably has a higher profile and more mainstream sway than at any point in recent history... but it's a type of feminism that Charlie's Angels isn't exactly a ready fit for, one that sees the flamboyant sex appeal of the series as a double-edged sword that can be empowering, but can just as easily turn into an avenue for abuse in its own right. How do you manage the contradictions of adapting a series that's considered a landmark for women's representation on film, but is also considered to be very much a product of its time in terms of how it goes about it?

The result is a decent action movie that doesn't do a lot to make itself feel necessary, but is still a welcome diversion that's probably gonna get a lot more airplay in reruns and streaming than it did in theaters (going by the weekend's box-office numbers). Its attempts at social commentary don't really cut all that deep; instead, writer/director Elizabeth Banks largely combines the comedy of the Pitch Perfect movies with action scenes set in glamorous locations, and feels more comfortable handling the former than the latter. The cast is a bright spot, particular Kristen Stewart of all people as more or less the "lead" Angel. Overall, if you want a truly kick-ass, pull-no-punches, take-no-prisoners feminist action movie helmed by a woman, go watch Revenge. But for those who don't want to bring a barf bag to the theater and are just looking for a good time, this is still worth a matinee.

We start out with Elena Houghlin, a programmer at a tech company in Hamburg, Germany who is working on a revolutionary new clean energy technology called Callisto, and has just a few problems she'd like to bring up to her superiors: namely, that the technology presents a potentially lethal safety hazard. As it turns out, her tech-bro boss Alexander Brock knows about this problem, because as far as he's concerned, it's not a bug but a feature: he had it designed specifically so that it could be weaponized and sold to terrorists as an assassination device. Fortunately, the Townsend Agency is on the case, taking Elena under their protection when they find out about Callisto's properties and pulling her into a world of fancy clothes and international espionage.

The first thing I noticed when watching this is that I couldn't help but be reminded of the Kingsman films, as it seemed like it lifted a lot of influence from them in terms of style. The Townsend Agency has gone from private eyes to private spies, behaving a lot more like Jason Bourne and Ethan Hunt than Christine Cagney and Mary Beth Lacey as they travel the world to stop a bad guy from supplying deadly weapons to terrorists -- a direction that the 2000 film leaned in but which is especially apparent here. While there's not as much focus given to the slick gadgets, the Angels' hideouts and lifestyle are nothing if not fancy, reflecting a modern image of young womanhood as much as the Kingsmen were an affectionate parody of the British aristocracy. Their doctor is a vegan hipster dude, their armory of "toys" is in a massive closet that also contains decades' worth of fashions, a lot of the focus of their espionage activities involves them dressing up in those glamorous fashions as disguises, and the soundtrack is dominated by upbeat pop-R&B and was co-executive produced by Ariana Grande. It's here where Banks is having the most fun behind the camera, crafting a story about three women hanging out and doing very fun things in such a manner that the audience would want to join them. The entire cast is great all around, starting with Naomi Scott as Elena, the newbie to the group who serves as the audience surrogate, and up through Banks herself as Bosley (in this film, "Bosley" is a rank) and Patrick Stewart as the original Bosley, who worked with both the OG '70s Angels and the 2000 version and gets pulled out of retirement here. The MVP in the cast, however, was Kristen Stewart as Sabina, in the culmination of what feels like a decade-long apology for her wooden acting in the Twilight films. She may not have made for a convincing ingenue in her teenage years, but here, she proves herself more than capable of playing a 21st century blockbuster action hero in (as Constance Grady noted) the vein of any number of other "Hollywood Chrises": Pratt, Hemsworth, Pine, Evans. As a troubled heiress whose run-ins with the law eventually led her to the Townsend Agency, Stewart is a master of snarky comebacks and one-liners, like if Daria Morgendorffer grew up, cut and dyed her hair, and became Melody Powers, the parody secret agent from the stories she writes. She definitely has the attitude and persona to play an action hero.

Unfortunately, I can't say the same for the action scenes. While she shot the slower moments well, Banks is not really an action director, and she often finds herself leaning on the old standby of quick editing meant to cover up poor choreography. A handful of scenes shine, particularly an all-too-brief hand-to-hand fight in a public restroom and a great setup involving a tranquilizer rifle and a high ledge, but all too often, the action felt fairly flat, a pale imitation of scenes from any number of other recent action films. The plot also didn't do a whole lot to keep my attention, serving largely as a mashup of spy movie cliches ranging from arms dealers to double-crosses, with one of the bigger twists feeling like a dud as the film didn't really do much to build up a sense of unease around the characters involved. This wasn't really a movie to think about, nor was it one that had a lot of great moments to talk about for a while to come. Most of all, it felt like a "greatest hits" of various recent spy movies of both the James Bond and Jason Bourne varieties, remixed into a package that came together as a coherent whole but didn't really go above and beyond, feeling altogether too lightweight to leave an impact. There wasn't really a whole lot to complain about, but there wasn't a whole lot for me to really grab onto and fall in love with.

The Bottom Line

The cast members all have better movies in them, but for what it is, this is still a fun action-comedy that delivers a good-time, goof-off atmosphere, one that may have been a bit too apparent in the production process itself but didn't really make this a bad movie. It's probably gonna have a long life on video, especially for all the cameos at the end.