Charlie’s Angels
Writer, Director, Co-star: Elizabeth Banks
Totally trashy and quite wonderful.
'Charlie's Angels' 2019 is a very different world to the one that launched Farrah Fawcett-Mayors, way back in the 70’s.
As I am guessing that Henry’s readers are not likely to see this latest offering, I’ll fill you in on some fun details that may, one day, have you nail that trivia session and truly impress your friends and loved ones …
In 2019, the Angels are an international franchise and ‘Bosley’ – you will remember the rather short and portly gentleman (David Doyle) from the 1970’s television series – well, Bosley is no longer a person but a rank. And like the far-reaching network of Angels stretching around the globe, each Angel Cluster has its ‘Bosley’ to act as go-between for ‘Charlie (aka Charles Townsend) and the Angels. And Charlie? Well, I’ll save this big reveal to the end of my essay.
Opening scene has crop haired and well-known queer actress Kristen Stewart in a Farrah Fawcett platinum wig and skin tight mini-dress, talking with the head honcho of a crime syndicate, while two hulking security guards look on. Sabina (Stewart’s character) is given the signal to take out our obviously smitten mafia agent. She gymnastically wraps his head in some interior decoration and begins to choke him while he (genuinely but somewhat breathlessly) tells her she is the most amazing women he has ever met … the onlooking thugs also think she in just practicing a little bondage on their boss for his titillation.
She rips off the wig as a bevy of Angels and good-guy agents rush the room. In a latter scene when Sabina has the same bad guy at gun-point he pleads with her not to kill him because he wants to see her again … and mentions he likes her new hair-do. She tells him in disgust that he is 'soooo needy'.
So cute, so far. That is pretty much the tone of this latest of the Angels' movie sequels. Tongue-in-cheek and fun … a little like the 007 movies when Roger Moore played James Bond, and his off-sider 'Q' (Peter Burton) produced ridiculously tricky secret weapons. The Angels' version highlights a massive series of wardrobes full of handbags, wigs, shoes and outfits, and of course those tricky gadgets that knock people out or blow them up … even though they look like an innocent packet of breath fresheners or some such thing.
The Angels are of course saving the world from a technology that can be used to destroy the planet but the really big reveal ... ta da da is that ‘Charlie’ is a woman, speaking through a voice distortion software.
Of course she is!
The original Angels