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| Ella Balinska, Kristen Stewart, and Naomi Scott in Charlie's Angels. Image courtesy Columbia Pictures. |
Some credit is due to the new
incarnation of Charlie's Angels for being somewhat different
than the eponymous television series and recent movie franchise. This
new version uses the previous versions as a launching pad to tell a
contemporary story about surviving and thriving in a male-dominated
world. But there's little else beyond this worth writing home about,
as the positives are often undercut by a film with a lot of nagging
gaps and unmemorable action sequences. Charlie's Angels isn't
a bad film; it's just incomplete.
Charlie's Angels stars Kristen
Stewart and Ella Balinska as Sabina and Jane, two agents in the
international Townsend Detective Agency. Sabina and Jane are assigned
to protect Elena (Naomi Scott), a brilliant programmer turned
whistleblower against her boss Peter (Nat Faxon). Elena wants to
inform company owner Alexander Brock (Sam Claflin) about a
potentially lethal flaw in their new product, but the situation
quickly becomes dangerous, leaving the three alone with a new Bosley
(writer/director Elizabeth Banks) to investigate what went wrong.
Meanwhile, the original Bosley (a wonderful Patrick Stewart) is just
starting retirement, but becomes suspicious about potential
wrongdoing in his old organization.
Charlie's Angels has some wonky
bits that course through the script. There's a twist, and a twist
upon the original twist, and neither twist is developed particularly
well. Rather, they come across as inorganic to the narrative,
existing for the sake of existing because fulfilling the first twist
violates one of the film's reason to be. Eliminating the thematic
dissonance that first twist brings, the film telegraphs both twists
poorly, missing an important beat or two in the order of
presentation, as well as a flashback that does not fit the rest of
the film.
Generally it seems like there is a
scene or two that is missed to tie this twist together. The rest of
the film has this feeling too, that there's just something incomplete
about Charlie's Angels. Where this strikes most is in the
film's character arcs. Banks' script is missing a few key moments of
growth in the relationship between Sabina and Jane, with the film
jumping from mild hostility to emotional dependence without tying the
two elements together. There's not a moment where the two depend on
each other, including the action sequences where it would fit
naturally to have such a moment. The issue falls with a script that
tries to wring so much out of the two-hour run time it can't find
time to connect the characters, sequences, and intrigue into a
cohesive unit. Charlie's Angels would be a better film with
either more time to develop the characters and story or removing some
elements in favor of a more linear plot.
The film's script is imperfect, but
it's not a bad baseline for the film to build on. Banks has a lot of
fun with Charlie's Angels as a concept, creating a fascinating
world with a female-oriented spy agency can infiltrate all aspects of
society. Female unity is a key theme for this movie, with women
uniformly looking out for one another through dangerous situations
and chauvinism both brazen and subtle. Sabina is also a fantastic
character, a queer lead unashamed of her broad sexual preferences and
yet does not fall into the bisexual trope of being overly
flirtatious. Sabina is written well and performed even better by
Stewart, who expresses more zest and glee than usual while tossing in
some pretty solid line deliveries. At the least Banks has a strong
sense of humor, writing in some solid little quips and a keen
understanding of exactly how long to let a running joke go before
cutting it off.
Banks is very good as a comedic
writer/director, but her action chops need work. Charlie's Angels
suffers from uninspired action sequences that lack excitement and
panache. There's nothing awe-inspiring or innovative about the fights
on screen, nothing to thrill audiences or give them their money's
worth. Even the comedic fight scenes involving Elena fall short, a
missed opportunity for the film to showcase a little slapstick.
Banks' innate sense of humor keeps Charlie's Angels from
failure, but the lack of action and inconsistent character
development dooms the film to mediocrity.
Review:
Two and a half out of Five Stars
Click
here
to see the trailer.
Rating:
PG-13
Run
time: 118 minutes
Genre:
Action
tl;dr
What
Worked: Kristen
Stewart,
Patrick
Stewart, Humor
What
Fell Short: Character
Development, Action, Plotting
What
To Watch Instead:
Charlie's
Angels
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