Charlie’s Angels

Based on the ’70s television show, Charlie’s Angels follows the title figures, Cameron Diaz’s Natalie, Drew Barrymore’s Dylan, and Lucy Liu’s Alex, as they set out to rescue a kidnapped software genius named Eric Knox (Sam Rockwell). First-time filmmaker McG admittedly does a superb job of instantly drawing the viewer into the progressively underwhelming proceedings, as Charlie’s Angels kicks off with a blisteringly-paced opening stretch that effectively establishes the central protagonists and the various oddball characters around them (including Bill Murray’s Bosley, Matt LeBlanc’s Jason, and Tom Green’s Chad) – with the perfectly watchable atmosphere heightened by a recurring emphasis on appreciatively larger-than-life action sequences and encounters. (It’s impossible, certainly, not to get a kick out of Crispin Glover’s all-too-brief appearances as a silent assassin known as the Thin Man.) There’s little doubt, then, that McG’s relentlessly slick approach to Ryan Rowe, Ed Solomon, and John August’s far-from-nuanced screenplay becomes, to an increasingly palpable extent, rather exhausting, and it’s perhaps not surprising to note that the movie’s pervasive lack of substance paves the way for a distressingly uninvolving final stretch – which, in addition to undoing the good will established by the affable first half, ultimately ensures that the whole thing concludes on a forgettable, anticlimactic note.

** out of ****