Charlie's Angels
Charlie's Angels is the newest movie about the all-female spies/secret agents that started as a TV show in the 1970's, followed by a movie series in the 2000's. It stars Kristen Stewart, Naomi Scott, Ella Balinska, Elizabeth Banks, and Patrick Stewart and was released in US theatres on November 15, 2019. Charlie's Angels is rated PG-13 for profanity, action/gun violence (including a somewhat graphic impalement), and sexual situations with a running time of just under 2 hours.
I saw Charlie's Angels in a tiny 48 seat auditorium with about a dozen other folks during a Sunday afternoon matinee showing on 11/24/19. There was a group of teenage girls there with their Moms who had a grand old time, and I thought that was fantastic. I remember being a teenage boy and watching shit like The Matrix and Men in Black, so the fact that those teenage girls got to have a similar experience is amazing. One minor irritating note: this marked the second time in a row that someone has decided to sit next to me even though there were literally dozens of other seats in the theatre with no one around. But whatever.
If you don't want to be spoiled, then you'll want to stop reading now because there are what could be considered spoilers herein. You've been warned!
First off, anyone calling this a reboot or a remake clearly didn't watch the movie. The first 15 minutes or so are literally spent saying farewell to the first Bosley (the world building here states that "Bosley" is a rank in the Townsend Agency, rather than an actual identity. So there are several Bosleys who lead teams of Angels all around the world) with a photo trip down memory lane showing him with both the original TV Angels and the film-based Angels. This movie is not a reboot. This movie is not a remake. It's a continuation of the same goddamn story that got started 40 years ago. But it's much easier to casually dismiss something as derivative and unoriginal even when it obviously fucking isn't.
Sexually-frustrated young white males are also upset about this movie because the leads are not "traditionally beautiful" (translation: they aren't white with big tits and long luxurious blonde hair so they don't make their dicks hard. Or possibly, the pixie cuts and lithe bodies with pert breasts and lean buttocks and thighs do make their dicks hard, but no homo) and was written and directed by a woman, therefore it makes fun of entitled man-babies and contains a whole lot of female-empowerment and just women being awesome without needing any men to help them. Plus, it's ladies doing action and car chases and shooting stuff, so...eww. We all know that only giant muscled, oily, shirtless dudes can do action and car chases and shoot stuff and wrestle with other giant muscled, oily, shirtless dudes.
Kristen Stewart gets a lot of hate as well, for a couple of reasons, I think. One, she was in the Twilight movies, which most guys think are horrible (they are, but not for the reasons they think), and she only had one expression for five movies straight. Given the source material and what she had to work with, I think she did the best she could. I've seen her in plenty of other stuff (Snow White and The Huntsman, Adventureland, The Runaways, and now this) where she actually acts and she's a fine, perfectly capable actor. Not only that, but she has excellent comedic timing that she shows off repeatedly in Charlie's Angels. As any actor will tell you: Drama is easy. Comedy is hard.
Mindless action movies are all fun and games when it's a bunch of dudes, but put ladies in the mix and suddenly the same guys who will talk for hours about what a great movie Over The Top was (it wasn't) will shit all over the fact that we've seen it all before, the plot twists are predictable, and there's a bullet shield around the protagonists. It's the same movie, folks, it just happens to be women instead of men and that's literally the only difference. Of course it's dumb, and predictable, and there's nothing new under the sun, and the heroes aren't going to die or even get seriously injured. If you wanted to engage your brain and see something new, you didn't really think you'd find that in an action movie, did you?
For those of us who can step outside of ourselves and relate to people who don't look like us (haha, as if these asshats actually look like The Rock or Jason Statham) or don't need/want to get a boner while watching a movie in a crowded theatre, Charlie's Angels is a highly enjoyable action flick. There's car chases (complete with a hubcap rolling towards the camera, that was a nice touch) and shootouts and spy shit, and I enjoyed every minute of it: with the exception of a few minutes around the one hour mark where things slowed to a virtual stop. Everything else was great.The main antagonist was also a whiny man-baby who oscillated between emotional extremes, and overreacted to everything. Can't imagine what they were making fun of with that character. Needless to say, I'm definitely going to support it with my dollars when it comes out digitally.
Have you seen Charlie's Angels and want to argue with me about how not-hot Kristen Stewart is (she is in fact, hot) or how only dudes can shoot guns, drive cars, and do Krav Maga (incorrect)? Post a comment and I'll be happy to take you to school. As always, have a great day!
I saw Charlie's Angels in a tiny 48 seat auditorium with about a dozen other folks during a Sunday afternoon matinee showing on 11/24/19. There was a group of teenage girls there with their Moms who had a grand old time, and I thought that was fantastic. I remember being a teenage boy and watching shit like The Matrix and Men in Black, so the fact that those teenage girls got to have a similar experience is amazing. One minor irritating note: this marked the second time in a row that someone has decided to sit next to me even though there were literally dozens of other seats in the theatre with no one around. But whatever.
If you don't want to be spoiled, then you'll want to stop reading now because there are what could be considered spoilers herein. You've been warned!
First off, anyone calling this a reboot or a remake clearly didn't watch the movie. The first 15 minutes or so are literally spent saying farewell to the first Bosley (the world building here states that "Bosley" is a rank in the Townsend Agency, rather than an actual identity. So there are several Bosleys who lead teams of Angels all around the world) with a photo trip down memory lane showing him with both the original TV Angels and the film-based Angels. This movie is not a reboot. This movie is not a remake. It's a continuation of the same goddamn story that got started 40 years ago. But it's much easier to casually dismiss something as derivative and unoriginal even when it obviously fucking isn't.
Sexually-frustrated young white males are also upset about this movie because the leads are not "traditionally beautiful" (translation: they aren't white with big tits and long luxurious blonde hair so they don't make their dicks hard. Or possibly, the pixie cuts and lithe bodies with pert breasts and lean buttocks and thighs do make their dicks hard, but no homo) and was written and directed by a woman, therefore it makes fun of entitled man-babies and contains a whole lot of female-empowerment and just women being awesome without needing any men to help them. Plus, it's ladies doing action and car chases and shooting stuff, so...eww. We all know that only giant muscled, oily, shirtless dudes can do action and car chases and shoot stuff and wrestle with other giant muscled, oily, shirtless dudes.
Kristen Stewart gets a lot of hate as well, for a couple of reasons, I think. One, she was in the Twilight movies, which most guys think are horrible (they are, but not for the reasons they think), and she only had one expression for five movies straight. Given the source material and what she had to work with, I think she did the best she could. I've seen her in plenty of other stuff (Snow White and The Huntsman, Adventureland, The Runaways, and now this) where she actually acts and she's a fine, perfectly capable actor. Not only that, but she has excellent comedic timing that she shows off repeatedly in Charlie's Angels. As any actor will tell you: Drama is easy. Comedy is hard.
Mindless action movies are all fun and games when it's a bunch of dudes, but put ladies in the mix and suddenly the same guys who will talk for hours about what a great movie Over The Top was (it wasn't) will shit all over the fact that we've seen it all before, the plot twists are predictable, and there's a bullet shield around the protagonists. It's the same movie, folks, it just happens to be women instead of men and that's literally the only difference. Of course it's dumb, and predictable, and there's nothing new under the sun, and the heroes aren't going to die or even get seriously injured. If you wanted to engage your brain and see something new, you didn't really think you'd find that in an action movie, did you?
For those of us who can step outside of ourselves and relate to people who don't look like us (haha, as if these asshats actually look like The Rock or Jason Statham) or don't need/want to get a boner while watching a movie in a crowded theatre, Charlie's Angels is a highly enjoyable action flick. There's car chases (complete with a hubcap rolling towards the camera, that was a nice touch) and shootouts and spy shit, and I enjoyed every minute of it: with the exception of a few minutes around the one hour mark where things slowed to a virtual stop. Everything else was great.The main antagonist was also a whiny man-baby who oscillated between emotional extremes, and overreacted to everything. Can't imagine what they were making fun of with that character. Needless to say, I'm definitely going to support it with my dollars when it comes out digitally.
Have you seen Charlie's Angels and want to argue with me about how not-hot Kristen Stewart is (she is in fact, hot) or how only dudes can shoot guns, drive cars, and do Krav Maga (incorrect)? Post a comment and I'll be happy to take you to school. As always, have a great day!
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