Blu-Ray/Movie Review: Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle

 

Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle is a 2003 action/comedy film that is the direct sequel to the 2000 film Charlie's Angels. McG returned to direct the film, which brought back Drew Barrymore, Cameron Diaz, and Lucy Liu to reprise their roles as the Angels Dylan, Natalie, and Alex. Crispin Glover, Luke Wilson, and Matt LeBlanc also reprised their roles from the first movie. The additions to the cast included Demi Moore, Robert Patrick, John Cleese, Shia LeBeouf, Justin Theroux, Bernie Mac, and Ja'Net Dubois. The film also features several cameo appearances, including Carrie Fisher, Pink, Robert Forester, Bruce Willis, Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen, and Jaclyn Smith, reprising her role as Kelly Garrett from the TV series. 

The plot involves a pair of rings that contain and unlock a list of people in the witness protection program. The list is stolen and set to be sold to various criminal organizations. A couple of revenge plots are intertwined within the story, and we get a bit more backstory about Crispin Glover's character. 

This is a single-disc release containing both the theatrical version of the film and an unrated version that adds a few more minutes to the runtime, mostly by adding more violence to a couple of the big fight scenes. The extras include several commentary tracks on the film. There is an audio and a telestrator commentary by McG. The audio tracks are exactly the same, but the telestrator commentary is annotated with things being circled in the background of some of the scenes while McG talks. Then, there is a commentary track by a couple of the writers. The theatrical version can also be played with a trivia track similar to the old show, Pop-Up Video, where information about the movie is displayed in pop-up boxes while it plays. Then there are several different making-of and behind-the-scenes featurettes, a preview for the 2019 reboot, and the music video for Pink's song Feel Good Time. 

Ultimately, the movie is a fun action-comedy. It is similar in style and tone to the first movie. It does have a lot of adult humor that skirts the bounds of what can be included in a PG-13 film. There is also a scene where the Angels are nude in shadow so you cannot really see anything except for a brief flash of sideboob from Drew Barrymore. Of course, the big draw when the movie came out was that this was Demi Moore's return to movies after a hiatus of about six years. She was phenomenal in the role and looked fantastic. It seems all the actors had fun in their respective roles and did not take themselves too seriously. The big change from the first film is that Bill Murray did not return. The writer's commentary track touched on Murray's absence, stating that they knew they would have to go in a different direction with the Bosley character when it was clear that Murray would not be back. There was no mention in any of the bonus content of the conflict between him and Lucy Liu in the first movie. They came up with a good way to have Bernie Mac be the new Bosley and did include a picture of Murray in one of the scenes. If you liked the first movie, you will probably like this one. Like the first film, this one takes a lot of suspension of disbelief and has some plot holes, but if you do not overthink it and just enjoy it for what it is, it is worth watching.   

4k-UHD/Movie Review: Charlie's Angels

 

Charlie's Angels is a 2000 action-comedy based on the 1970s TV series of the same name. It stars Drew Barrymore, Lucy Liu, Cameron Diaz, Bill Murray, Sam Rockwell, Kelly Lynch, and Crispin Glover in the main roles. Tim Curry, Matt LeBlanc, Luke Wilson, Melissa McCarthy, Tom Green, LL Cool J, and Alex Trebek have smaller roles (or cameos). John Forsythe reprised his role from the TV series playing the voice of Charlie, while Barrymore, Liu, and Diaz played the Angels. Murray plays Bosley, who is the go-between the Angels and Charlie. The plot involves misdirection about who the true bad guys are, but the meat of the storyline is that someone is trying to track down Charlie as a part of a revenge scheme, using the Angels and Bosley as unwitting pawns in the plan.

The 4k set is a two-disc set containing a UHD disc and a regular blu-ray disc. The A/V quality of the UHD disc is outstanding and is a massive upgrade over the DVD release and a decent upgrade over the 1080p release. Most of the extras are on the regular blu-ray, but the UHD disc has the teaser and theatrical trailers for the movie and a sneak peek at the 2019 reboot/quasi-sequel written and directed by Elizabeth Banks. The extras on the regular blu-ray were carried over from the prior physical media releases and include a commentary track by director McG and cinematographer Russell Carpenter, several behind-the-scenes featurettes featuring cast interviews, a blooper reel (which are the same bloopers shown in the end credits), deleted scenes, and two music videos.

The movie is a bit dated, but it holds up pretty well even after 25 years (as of this writing). It has a good blend of action and humor, and Barrymore, Diaz, and Liu had no qualms about looking silly. They did work their asses off to do a lot of the stunts. And, they were all hot as fire. Some of the humor is a bit cheesy, and Tom Green is annoying, as always. While Barrymore, Diaz, and Lui seemed to have great chemistry, there was no mention in any of the bonus material of the tension between Murray and Liu that would lead to the role of Bosley being recast in the direct sequel, Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle. Ultimately, this combines a good action movie and a silly comedy. If you can accept it for what it is and what it is not, it is worth watching. 

4k-UHD/Movie Review: Charlie's Angels (2019)

 

The 2019 version of Charlie's Angels is an action/adventure movie directed by Elizabeth Banks and starring Kristen Stewart, Ella Balinkska, Naomi Scott, Patrick Stewart, Noah Centineo, and Djimon Honsou. The film is a reboot of a reboot, which was very likely a large part of why it did not do better at the box office. That, and the lack of significant star power. Of course, the 2000 and 2003 movies had Drew Barrymore, Lucy Liu, and Cameron Diaz, all of whom were very well-known. This one has Kristen Stewart, who is probably the biggest star, aside from Patrick Stewart and Elizabeth Banks (who has a prominent role in the movie as well as directing the film). Stewart (in arguably her best role to date) plays one of the Angels along with Naomi Scott and Ella Balinska. They all did a fine job as the "Angels" but did not have the star power to drive many people to see the movie. Some well-known actors and actresses are in supporting and cameo roles, including Patrick Stewart, Ronda Rousey, and more, but their roles were relatively small. The film does partially tie into the TV show and the prior movies.

My biggest complaint about the movie is that it lifts too much from the prior movies, including a villain from the agency, an updated version of The Thin Man character (played by Crispin Glover in the prior film), a mogul bad guy, etc. The "empowered woman"/"girl power" theme of the movie was fine, even if a bit ham-fisted at times. As you can see from some of the comments on Amazon, it turned many people off, but it is not something that bothered me all that much.

The 4k set is a two-disc set containing a UHD disc and a regular Blu-Ray disc. The movie looks and sounds great in the UHD format. The UHD disc has previews that play before the menu loads, then the movie itself. The rest of the extras are on the regular Blu-ray disc. They include deleted scenes, a gag reel, several short (5-7 min, give or take) making-of and behind-the-scenes featurettes, a feature on Elizabeth Banks in her roles as actor and director, and the music video for the movie's theme song. Overall, it is a decent movie, but not great. It is not as good as the original 2000 movie but on par with the 2003 sequel, full throttle. It will definitely not appeal to everyone, but for a two-hour action movie, it is worth checking out as long as you accept that it is not award-winning material.

DVD/Movie Review: Charlie's Angels (Special Edition)

 

Charlie's Angels is an action/comedy from 2000 and a reboot of the 1970s TV Show. It starred Cameron Diaz, Drew Barrymore, and Lucy Liu (as the titular angels), Bill Murray as Bosley, and Tim Curry, Crispin Glover, Kelly Lynch, Luke Wilson, Sam Rockwell, and John Forsythe in a small cameo role. It is a movie that very much has its tongue firmly planted in cheek. There is a lot of over-the-top action and some sexual innuendo. There is no nudity, just some tight outfits and cleavage shots (especially from Drew Barrymore). The movie is primarily an action film with a plot that is mostly there to have something to fill between the action sequences. It involves a plot to kidnap a software developer (played by Rockwell), which is really a plot to get Charlie (who, of course, is only heard, not seen). 

The DVD has a ton of extras, including several behind-the-scenes and making-of features, a commentary track on the movie with director McG, deleted scenes, bloopers, production notes, trailers, and a couple of music videos. The film has been released on blu-ray, but I am not sure if there are any new extras that were created just for the blu-ray. 

The movie is not great, but it is fun. That was really the point of it. It was never intended to be an award-winner and does not try to be. The movie's production was not without controversy because of the heat (or possible outright hatred) between Bill Murray and Lucy Liu, but that did not seem to bleed over into the movie itself. And, of course, because Barrymore was married to Tom Green at the time, you have to endure a few minutes of him, which is great if you find him funny. Not so much if he makes your ears and eyes bleed anything he is on screen. Overall, it is a good action movie with a lot of so-so comedy in it. Some of the comedy is very good, and some of it is very bad. But, I do think it is worth checking out.