I suppose the word campy is a little odd to use to describe this movie, but it's the best I could come up with. Sorta like describing the old Batman and Robin tv show compared to the Batman movies...or the original Star Trek with Shatner and the likes, to today's movies and shows.

Campy.

I highly expected to see and hear "zoinks" "wham" and "bam" in pyscho-delic colors and bubbles intermixed in this remake of the original Charlie's Angels tv series...

How to compare when I never watched Angels to begin with? Well, there are commercials, rehashes, and frankly who can possibly forget the theme music and Charlie's voice, even if you were too young to have watched the series with anything but confusion.

From the outset I wasn't too sure about this flick. A lot of chicks, a lot of skin, and what looked like good special affects screamed to the men, but to even the most chick-flick hating of women...I still wasn't too sure about this movie.

When my hubby brought it home I wrinkled my nose in distain, but agreed to sit through it, give or take whether I was going to actually stay in the living room to complete the 2 hours.

I must say, my husband and I managed to stick with it...managed is stated in the losest of terms.

Let me begin by saying that when LL Cool J was the first face to meet (recognizable that is) I was sorta excited...okay, they are going to have some faces in this movie, and they did...but not to the point I was hoping.

LL wasn't exactly LL....

but anywho, I waited, laughed with the campy background blue screens so reminiscent of cheesy b-flicks, and when the Charlie's angels music started I thought okay, there's going to be some comedy here.

But it wasn't quite that either...I'm not sure what to consider this genre...and here's why.

Charlie's does a superb job of giving women the chance to hold a movie together, fight off some bad guys, and still come out with their lipstick on...but that's the prob...the lipstick is always on...we aren't about to forget they are women. To appear strong the men have to be in short, pigs, but unlike pigs they are incredibly stupid.

Look at the Chad!

Okay, I can take the men looking stupid, but when you have to have 3 women fight against one stupid guy...naw...sorry...that makes women look stupid.

I must admit I love Drew, Luci, and Cameron in this film. They are funny, beautiful and intelligent. But they should have been given more credit instead of being campy strings for Charlie. When they all chime in "Hello Charlie." I to grimaced, remindful of a gluntiny of school girls squeeling over Boys-n-Sync...or something termed cutesy for teenage girls.

and granted I would have preferred to see Drew use her smarts to attract the attention of a chaffeur as opposed to using her cleavage...but that's how they make the men in this movie look stupid.

The only man who didn't act disturbingly piggish was Cameron's new date...a hunky bartender she meets while on the beat...I guess you could call it a beat?

Drew is delightful, given this was her movie making in the works. She gave herself a good character, but could have skipped the Starfish with Chad scenes with her real life boyfriend Green. Perky, beautiful and enthralling Drew could pull off a movie as a real detective without having to flash her boobs or be half-undressed...though I admit the part where she falls out of a client's window (after being supposedly shot) and runs naked up to two video game playing neighbor kids' door was hilarious. She's smarter than that and has been in the business long enough to not have to show any skin.

Luci seems incredibly underused in this movie. She usually has a striking character, no matter how small the part (I'm thinking Shanghai Noon here) instead she seems glossed over and prettified. For instance when she tells Cameron to flip her hair...or squawks over sufflee that gets flattened - her character comes up empty and devoid of the ball of fire we know she really possesses!

Then there's the issue of Cameron.

She is a beautiful woman who usually plays someone sweet and adorable, always sweet and adorable! I would have liked to see her with some attitude, after all, she pulls off smashing fight sequences in this movie but comes across sadly as the far-fabled blond silly...she is too strong a woman to be in that category.

Really they should have had Cameron's new boyfriend in more parts, he was a strong character...Green who is usually someone I can put up with in a movie was not likeable to any degree...which was disappointing, I guess I was expecting him to be a civil actor in this movie, and he was far too...normal? His Chad character was lame!

However, I have to backtrack and say some of the sexual playfulness was funny...the scene with the gals impersonating a Dutch singing group (I've no better way to explain it) was funny because of the ease to which the men all fell to the scantily cladness and silly sexiness of it all.

And then there was Cameron's impressive somersault into the vault (which I assume wasn't her) but it was still nifty...

But some of the fight scenes were a little campy (ah, my fav word again) that's from watching too many flicks copy the movie fights from Matrix. I didn't even like Shrek using Matrix fighting scenes...

Charlie's did have a sweet storyline for Drew, who's character was missing a father figure in her life, to which the never-seen-Charlie fit the bill, with a possible glimpse ending. And her fall out the window when presumably being shot was a decent action sequence.

If you can get passed the campiness at the beginning, Charlie's is a fairly decent ride. The destruction of the Angels office allows the movie to slide smoothly. It's the ackwardness at the beginning that my hubby and I foudn ourselves not too sure we were going to stick around, rewind, or do something else while the movie played in the background.

Either way, we made it through without a lot of spark of conversation.

It was hit the rewind and dig out a good book...

Recommended:
No

Viewing Format: VHS
Video Occasion: Better than Watching TV
Suitability For Children: Suitable for Children Age 13 and Older