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This will go into spoilers, so if you haven’t seen Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle… well, it doesn’t really matter. It’s not like the film makes any sense. But why should that matter, since there are young women involved performing martial arts, getting involved in cheap matrix-style effects, and dancing with the Pussycat Dolls. To top it off, there’s Cameron Diaz doing “that” Martini Glass routine, pouring water over herself and saying, “ooh!” What could possibly go wrong?

Charlie’s Angels was released in 2000 and turned out to be a surprising success, both financially and even critically! The $264 million it earned worldwide justified a sequel. Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle was one of 14 sequels released during the summer of 2003. Opening in the US on June 27, 2003, it reached #1 that weekend with a decent take of $37.6 million. However, the following week it was down to #3, losing over 60% of its audience. The film took in $100.8 million at the US box office and $158.3 million internationally. Earning $259.1 million worldwide is a good result, but this was less than the first film, and Sony Columbia were clearly expecting more.

Reviews were also worse this time around, with many critics citing the insanely stupid story. The film rehashes an idea from the original, where the Angels, Dylan (Drew Barrymore), Natalie (Cameron Diaz) and Alex (Lucy Liu) save someone who just so happens to be a very bad person. It opens with the trio on a mission to rescue US Marshal Ray Carter (Robert Patrick). He owns one of two titanium rings that just so happens to be a database of information that holds the identities of everyone in a Federal Witness Protection Program. Despite the successful rescue, his ring has been stolen, and the owner of the other ring is shot dead.

The Angels are hired to retrieve the pair of titanium rings, and their suspicions lead them to a former angel, Madison Lee (Demi Moore), Dylan's former boyfriend Seamus (Justin Theroux) and former villain from the first film, The Thin Man (Crispin Glover). Towards the end, the film introduces a twist, where we discover that Ray is actually in cahoots with former Angel, Madison. It’s a twist that makes the film look more stupid, because you then start questioning why this guy would let himself get kidnapped. Supposedly it’s so Carter isn’t suspected, but the other ring is obtained so easily that it just makes the whole opening rescue sequence redundant.

This is one instance where you realise just how ridiculous the script is. Written by John August (who wrote the first film) and husband and wife duo Cormac and Marianne Wibberley, they even mention on the DVD commentary that the film doesn’t make much sense. “As long as you see the rings, you don’t think about the plot not making sense,” says August. It is instead more focused on presenting a collection of action and comedy set pieces, and they’re all tied together by lame excuses to explain what story there is; be it Sex Wax, bird poop and Fred Astaire. To its credit, the comedy is genuinely funny. The action is a different matter altogether.

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