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| Charlie's Angels II |
| Genre |
Action-Comedy |
| Director |
McG |
| Starring |
Cameron Diaz |
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What do you get with “Charlie’s Angels II: Full Throttle”? All style, no substance. Sure the movie’s bad, but I’ll try and be positive for a little while. At the very least it could be seen as some sort of a comment on America’s fascination with celebrities and pop culture.
The large number of stars include: Demi Moore (“GI Jane” who may develop Rene Russo like prowess to maintain her hotness well into her fourties and fifties), Cameron Diaz (“There’s Something About Mary”), rising star Justin Theroux (“American Psycho”, “Mulholland Drive”), Bernie Mac (“The Kings of Comedy” replacing Bill Murray as Bosley), Lucy Lui (“Shanghai Noon”), and Drew Barrymore (“Confessions of a Dangerous Mind”).
Cameos include: Bruce Willis (“Tears of the Sun”), Pink (“Rollerball”), The Olsen Twins (they’re 17 now!) Matt Leblanc (“Friends”), Robert Patrick (“Terminator 2”), Crispin Glover (“Willard”), Luke Wilson (“Old School”), John Cleese (“Die Another Day”), Carrie Fisher (“Star Wars”) and Robert Forster (“Jackie Brown”).
The film is packed with subtle and not so subtle references to other films. “Full Throttle” samples “Indiana Jones” and “James Bond”, “Blue Crush” and “Blue Velvet,” “Flashdance”, “The Matrix,” “C.S.I.” and the X-Games. Even the “Full Throttle” poster was supposedly ripped off from an old Loverboy album.
Yes, there was some cheap enjoyment watching Cameron Diaz in a Mongolian bar, riding the mechanical yak, Lucy Liu cartwheeling in skintight black and Drew Barrymore dripping wet as she soaps down a vehicle in a car wash.
It also should be mentioned that the film features a killer Sountrack that features everything from Motley Crue’s “Looks That Kill”, Loverboy’s “Working for The Weekend”, to Tone Loc’s “Wild Thing”.
Oh right the plot, this is where the problems start. It revolves around Dylan Sanders (Barrymore), who’s old lover Seamus O’Grady (Theroux) is getting out of prison and is hell-bent on revenge. Instead of just killing her, he attempts to get his hands on two specially encoded rings, called the Halo Rings, that contain the identities and locations of everyone in the government's Witness Protection Program. If Seamus gets the rings, it will expose Dylan (who’s real name is Helen Zass. Ha, ha, ha -see the humor lies in the fact that the name sounds like- oh forget it).
There's also "fallen" Angel Madison Lee (Demi Moore), looking to profit on this situation by reselling the WPP list to gangsters. To prevent that, the Angels must survive a series of complications, out-of-nowhere dance numbers and impromptu flashbacks.
McG (is he named after a failed old school rapper?), who made the first film after directing nothing but music videos, is back for the sequel. For a movie built around stunts, the martial-arts fighting is unusually feeble. McG favors quick cuts and close shots, presumably to disguise his stars' lack of fighting prowess. (Say what you will about Chuck Norris and Charles Bronson, but when they beat the crap out of people, it was at least believable).
Like a video game, the movie ignores conventional notions of space, time and gravity in favor of stunts full of slow-motion special effects. Some have argued that the film has charm because it winks at it’s own over the top-ness. But even if the stunts are deliberately over the top, that doesn’t excuse them for being ridiculous. If I do something that is bad, it’s not good just because I did it on purpose.
For the first half hour, I’ll admit that I was charmed by the flash, glamour and killer soundtrack. However the lack of humor and suspense starts to catch up with the film and things start to get boring and tedious. The lack of credibility is not always a problem as shown in the recent “Hollywood Homicide”, that made up for it with charm.
“Full Throttle” simply left me with a bad taste in my mouth. Say what you will about irony, tongue in cheek, blah, blah, blah- this is an un-enjoyable, heartless, Hollywood Summer film. Anyone looking for cheap thrills should sit this one out and see an art film or just wait until the round of movies next week. (C-)
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| "We use words like honor, code, loyalty. We use these words as the backbone of a life spent defending something. You use them as a punchline. I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a man who rises and sleeps under the blanket of the very freedom I provide, then question the manner in which I provide it." |
- Jack Nicholson
A Few Good Men
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Distributed Beers
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| 5 |
Sierra Nevada Bigfoot |
| 4 |
Guinness Draught |
| 3 |
Newcastle Brown Ale |
| 2 |
Bass Pale Ale |
| 1 |
Samuel Adams Boston Lager |
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