Charlie's Angels

"I think women can do anything." Charlie's Angels makes it's intent clear in it's opening seconds with these words from Kristin Stewart's Sabina. This is the 2019 version of things. Within minutes she's making an absolute idiot out of her mark. Telling him to his face what she's going to do to him while he looks at her with a dopey look of disbelief on his face. Then all hell breaks loose. Ah It's nice to have the Angels back.

A new invention called Calisto is about to set the tech world on fire. It's source of clean energy but also a source of danger when an engineer on the project called Elena (Naomi Scott) discovers it can be weaponised and used to covertly assassinate. After her concerns are ignored she calls for the help of Charlie's Angels, a group of female spies and is teamed up with Sabina and Jane (Ella Balinska). Their handler is Bosley (Elizabeth Banks) who gets them the wheres and whens and they take care of the rest. An initial encounter with Elena is interrupted by a gun wielding assassin and everyone suddenly finds themselves up to their necks in danger.

Yep, it's yet another franchise resurrection. There's been a lot of them lately and yeah they they aren't really necessary but in this horrible age of uncertainty and imminent disaster lurking on the edge of every social media timeline they feel kinda comforting. This year we've had Rambo, The Terminator, Child's Play, Shaft and Jay &Silent Bob and now Charlie (once again never seen) and the gang are back. The new film is a fun watch. It doesn't reinvent anything but it's much better than some reviews would have you believe. It's odd, a lot of people are holding this to a much higher standard than they would if it was yet another testosterone fest. If The Stath was globe trotting and impaling bad guys on party ornaments no one would bat an eyelid but because it's women it's lacking depth and subtlety? Pfft, Cindy Lauper once said girls just wanna have fun and you know, i think she may have been onto something.

Elizabeth Banks 2nd directorial effort has a nice global spy movie feel to it. Paris, Istanbul, Hamburg, Rio De Janeiro all pop up & all are filled with exotic bad guys and glamour galore. It hits all the beats you'd expect (the stealth infiltration of an office that goes rapidly wrong is a scream) and then a few you don't. We get to see the stuff the Bond's of the world never have to deal with. Being told to smile, being talked over, credit being taken, unwanted contact and flirting. Plenty of reviewers have whined about this film of having a feminist agenda but all it's doing is pointing out the things every woman watching will have dealt with. If you're complaining about this you might want to have a think about yourself. It's all done with a light touch anyway, it never feels like a sermon and it never gets in the way of the entertainment as Banks gets the blend of laughs and action right.

Kristin Stewart as Sabine and Patrick Stewart as an ex Angel's handler have a whale of a time. Both have been humourless onscreen in the past and it's good craic seeing them cut loose. The younger Stewart displays a fine comic timing that makes up for her lack of action chops (a couple of the action scenes are very clumsily shot to cover this up) but Ella Balinska's Jane more than takes up the slack here. She's a face we'll be seeing a lot more of soon. Statuesque, funny, looks convincing kicking someone's head in. She'll get her own action franchise in time but in the meanwhile she does good here. Jonathan Tucker's bad guy is a dull squib though. Mostly mute apart from one telling word. So many modern action flicks fuck up the bad guys, leaving them feeling like an afterthought. It's frustrating but thankfully there's plenty of enjoyment on display to help us overlooks the negatives, a crunching coffee shop face off, a novel use from a computer mouse, the holistic side of espionage and a funny early sight gag that ties this film back to the original series and the Cameron Diaz starring films of earlier this century.

Give this a chance. Ignore the basement dwellers who've given this a bad IMDB score without ever seeing it. Make your own mind up. Come for the nostalgia and relax when you realise you're having a good time. Oh and stay put for some surprises in the credits too.