Charlie’s Angels: Third Time’s not Such a Charm

Charlies Angels Review

The return of Charlie’s Angels to the big screen is a comedy that falls flat and a thriller that spirals into meh. For those who don’t already know that the Angel’s are continuation of two other films that themselves were a continuation of the television series that aired on ABC from 1975 to 1981. This time out we meet a number of new Angels and for a so-so twist we meet a number of new Bosley’s. Directed by Elizabeth Banks, she has her moments and manages to keep it cohesive enough, but she’s also sadly crippled by a crappy screenwriter.

Tragically, that crappy screenwriter is Banks. It would have been fine if the movie was just another formulaic popcorn movie. It is, it’s just that it is so sub-par in its formula it irritates way more than it entertains. The three leads, Kristen Stewart, Naomi Scott and Ella Balinska do what they can to save this movie, and they come close to doing it. Especially Stewart and Balinska. Scott is adequate given the material, but Balinska and Stewart tend to shine.

Naomi Scott struggles with her strangely written Role. As Elena Houghlin she is an engineer, a programmer, as well as the creator of the movie’s McGuffin; the Calisto project. We meet her as she is scolded by her boss Peter Fleming (Nat Faxon), who doesn’t want Elena’s warnings about the Calisto project to stall the marketing plans. Elena insists that the flaws are too serious to ignore and given time she can fix it. Fleming nixes her fixes and she leaves in frustration.

Soon after she has contacted Charlie’s (now international) investigative agency for help. How she came about that agency is shown in awkward scene with Elena exiting Fleming’s office after being scolded and another employee (obviously an Angel) points to a business card on the floor. From that awkward scene to all that follows we watch Elena awkwardly react to the events thrust upon her. She’s is continually referred to as very intelligent but she continually does silly and stupid things.

It is no surprise that Scott gives an awkward performance of an awkwardly written character constantly doing awkward things and placing herself in awkward positions. I get that smart people can do stupid things too. It’s just that the “smart” things she does doesn’t convince as much as the stupid things undermine this notion that she’s really smart. Scott ultimately opts for goofy and this is not without it’s charms.

The other two of the main three Angel’s (yes Elena becomes an “angel”) we meet in the opening sequence. Sabina Wilson (Stewart) uses her sex appeal – Jiggletainment being one of the tenets that started it all – to snare a bad guy. The bad guy is an international smuggler called Jimmy Smith (Chris Pang) whose only real importance in the opening is to establish his presence for later in the film. That, and he’s become quite smitten by Sabina who comes off kind of unlikable to begin with.

Amid a gaggle of body guards, all watching Sabina’s seduction of Jimmy, she uses the sexy silk drapes flowing in the wind to distract while Jane Kano (Balinska), a former MI-6 operative, sneaks up behind the bodyguards. Both the Angels make short shrift of the bad guys and when said and done, enter John Bosely this time played by Patrick Stewart. In the previous films Bill Murray had taken the Bosely character, earlier played by David Doyle in the television series. Bosely has arrived as the cleaner and to hand Jimmy Smith over to the proper authorities.

While the character of Bosely seems to stay the same throughout both the television series (a reboot of the series aired ABC in 2011) and film series, the Angel’s never remain the same. Although, apparently in a knowing wink, Stewart’s name Sabina comes close to Kate Jackson’s character in the original TV series; Sabrina Duncan. Bank’s wink winds up becoming the kind of wink a vaudevillian comedian would do while imitating a winking mime. The jokes just tend to fall really flat.

Stewart’s Sabina starts out as kind of unlikable, this also is apparently a quirk of the character baked into the script by Banks. Fortunately Stewart is a stellar actress and once establishing her un-likability she immediately goes to work at charming us. She too say’s and does awkward things, but Stewart does not awkwardly perform this. She dances like a belladonna and sometimes like monkey belladonna, but charming and watchable.

Balinski only has to keep her emotional cards close to her bullet proof vest and when she’s doing this she too is very watchable. When she starts showing some of those emotional cards it’s to mixed effect. When she flirts with a co-worker of Elena’s, Langston (Noah Centino), Balinski’s charm is as compelling as Stewart’s, but in a crucial scene when she must lay down all her cards in an emotional breakdown she’s not so successful. These are the three Angel’s of Charlie’s Angels.

Following the opening scene, we learn that Bosely is retiring. We then soon learn that Charlie has gone international with his agency and the building of this was largely due to Bosely. We learn this from another Bosely played by Banks herself, Rebekha. Because if you’re going to have a franchise of investigation agencies internationally, you’re going to need a lot Angel’s and Bosely’s. This is a fine idea that is all introduced awkwardly in an awkwardly meh retirement send off of John Bosely.

It is after this that Elena has contacted another Bosely, Edgar (Djimon Hansou) to help her with her dilemma. Although it’s not quite clear who Charlie’s investigation agency is supposed to help Elena fix the flaws in her McGuffin before it goes to market. Still, she meets with Edgar and with Sabina on point and Jane disguised as a waitress, they able to somewhat handle the assassin, Hodok (Jonathan Tucker) to kill Elena. Banks juggles all these characters and so many more fairly admirably, it’s just too bad she insists on telling so many bad jokes while she’s juggling.

The action scenes never rise to the level of McG”s (who directed the first two movies) workmanship and no where near the style. That’s saying something since it’s McG we’re talking about. It’s not that the action sequences are bad, or not really bad, but not good either, just meh. All three of the main Angel’s become more likable as the movie kind of grows on you and some of the jokes actually land. Banks might grow into a journeyman director but at this point, with this material she’s out of her league and it’s a bush league to begin with.