Guilty Pleasures: Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle
By Shalimar Sahota
July 22, 2010
Directed by - McG
Written by – John August, Cormac Wibberley, Marianne Wibberley
Starring - Cameron Diaz (Natalie Cook), Drew Barrymore (Dylan Sanders), Lucy Liu (Alex Munday), Bernie Mac (Bosley), Crispin Glover (The Thin Man), Justin Theroux (Seamus O’Grady), Robert Patrick (Ray Carter), Demi Moore (Madison Lee), Shia LaBeouf (Max Petroni) John Cleese (Mr Munday), Luke Wilson (Pete Komisky), Matt LeBlanc (Jason Gibbons), John Forsythe (Charlie Townsend),
Length – 105 minutes
Cert - 12A / PG-13
Despite the general consensus that some films out there are truly awful, for every one that is released there will always be a small minority of us that secretly enjoys them. We all have one… or maybe seven… though we duly don’t admit to owning them for fear of wide spread embarrassment and no one talking to us ever again. However, it’s time to get it out in the open. Like admitting to having brought a Celine Dion single, (I was swept up in all the Titanic hype, I tell you), everyone has their own guilty pleasures.
The summer of 2003 saw a plethora of sequels, such as X-Men 2, The Matrix Reloaded, Terminator 3 and 2 Fast 2 Furious. Given the soundtrack, the vibrant look, the abundance of quick cuts, and director McG’s credentials, Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle is very much an extended music video, yet there are moments when it comes across as a live action Looney Tunes cartoon.
So why this one and not the first? After enduring the first film, you already know not to take it all so seriously with a sequel that revels in the ridiculous. Full Throttle is so loaded with choreographed fight sequences, displays of female flesh, the occasional dance routine, explosions and Lucy Liu eating a brown bread sandwich, you'd almost forget that there's a story in there too… somewhere.
The very basic premise has Angels Natalie (Diaz), Dylan (Barrymore), and Alex (Liu) trying to retrieve a pair of titanium rings that just so happen to be a database of information that holds the identities of everyone in a Federal Witness Protection Program. Their suspicions lead them to a former angel, Madison Lee (Moore), Dylan's former boyfriend Seamus (Theroux) and a former villain from the first film, The Thin Man (Glover). Co-written by husband and wife duo, Cormac and Marianne Wibberley (who had previously scripted I Spy), they obviously don’t want you to be thinking too much when watching this. Believe me, I’ve done it, and realised that it makes little to no sense at all. It’s quite possible that McG wasn’t working from a script and just made it up as he went along.
The crazy opening scene has the Angels on a mission trying to rescue some "important person" by the name of Ray Carter (Patrick). They perform an unbelievable getaway, involving a fantastically crazy jump from a dam and starting a jet plane while it’s in freefall. All logic and sense should have disappeared from this point.
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