Charlie's Angels (film)

Charlie's Angels

Theatrical release poster
Directed by McG
Produced by
Written by
Based on Charlie's Angels
by Ivan Goff
and Ben Roberts
Starring
Narrated by John Forsythe
Music by Edward Shearmur
Cinematography Russell Carpenter
Edited by
Production
companies
Distributed by Columbia Pictures
Release date
  • November 3, 2000 (2000-11-03)
Running time
 98 minutes[1]
Country United States
Language English
Budget $90 million
Box office $264.1 million

Charlie's Angels is a 2000 American action comedy film based on the television series of the same name created by Ivan Goff and Ben Roberts. Unlike the original series, which had dramatic elements, the film featured more comical elements than were seen in the series.

The film was directed by McG, adapted by screenwriters Ryan Rowe, Ed Solomon and John August, and starred Cameron Diaz, Drew Barrymore and Lucy Liu as three women working in a private detective agency in Los Angeles. John Forsythe reprised his role as the unseen Charlie's voice from the original series. Making cameo appearances are Tom Green (who was dating Barrymore at the time of production) and LL Cool J.

The film was released on November 3, 2000 in the United States by Columbia Pictures, receiving mixed to positives reviews from critics. A sequel, entitled Full Throttle, was released in June 2003. A reboot film is in production, scheduled for a 2019 release.

Plot

Natalie Cook (Cameron Diaz), Dylan Sanders (Drew Barrymore) and Alex Munday (Lucy Liu) are the "Angels", three talented, tough, attractive women who work as private investigators together for an unseen millionaire named Charlie (voiced by John Forsythe). Charlie uses a speaker in his offices to communicate with the Angels, and his assistant Bosley (Bill Murray) works with them directly when needed.

Charlie assigns the Angels to find Eric Knox (Sam Rockwell), a software genius who created a revolutionary voice-recognition system and heads his own company, Knox Enterprises. Knox is believed to have been kidnapped by Roger Corwin (Tim Curry), who runs a communications-satellite company called Redstar. The Angels infiltrate a party held by Corwin and spot the Creepy Thin Man (Crispin Glover) who was seen on the surveillance videos during Knox's kidnapping. They chase and fight the Creepy Thin Man.

After the Angels reunite Knox with his business partner Vivian Wood (Kelly Lynch), Charlie explains that they must determine whether the Creepy Thin Man has stolen Knox's voice-recognition software. The Angels infiltrate Redstar headquarters, fool the security system, and plant a device in the central computer that will enable them to explore it remotely. They retire for the night after giving Bosley the laptop computer that communicates with the Redstar computer. Dylan takes up Knox's offer to spend the night with him, end up in making love but he betrays her later that night, explaining that he faked the kidnapping with help from Vivian and the Creepy Thin Man. He has kidnapped Bosley, and, with access to Redstar's central computer, he intends to use his voice software with the Redstar satellite network to find and kill Charlie, who he believes had killed his father in the Vietnam War.

Knox shoots at Dylan, seemingly killing her, but she escapes unharmed. Natalie and Alex are also attacked, and Corwin is murdered by the Creepy Thin Man. When the Angels regroup together, all uninjured, Charlie's offices are blown up. A radio receiver survives in the rubble, and Natalie deduces Bosley's location as he speaks to the Angels using a radio transmitter implanted in his teeth, explaining how to spot his location where he is being held captive.

With help from Dylan's current boyfriend Chad (Tom Green), the Angels approach the abandoned lighthouse where Knox is holding Bosley prisoner. The Angels rescue Bosley and defeat Vivian, the Creepy Thin Man, and some henchmen before Knox blows up the lighthouse, but Knox uses his software and the Redstar satellite network to locate Charlie when he telephones Bosley. When Knox programs a helicopter with a missile towards Charlie's house, Bosley helps the Angels board the helicopter, and Alex reprograms the missile to have it shoot backwards, which blows up the helicopter and kills Knox while all of the Angels land safely together on the beach.

Seeing the opportunity to finally meet Charlie in person, they enter the beach house that Knox had targeted the missile at, but Charlie has already left. He remotely congratulates the Angels on a job well done through another speaker, and treats them and Bosley to a vacation. Charlie tells them that Knox's father was undercover; however, he was discovered and he was killed by someone else but not Charlie. When he speaks to the Angels unseen again by telephone on the beach, they ask if they could ever meet him in person. Dylan then suspects that she might be seeing him nearby talking into a cell phone, but she doesn't tell the group.

Cast

One of the most widely reproduced publicity images from Charlie's Angels features (L to R) Lucy Liu, Cameron Diaz, and Drew Barrymore in defensive posture as they prepare to subdue The Creepy Thin Man.

Soundtrack

Released October 24, 2000.

Reception

Box office

Charlie's Angels grossed $125.3 million domestically and $148.8 million in other territories, for a worldwide gross of $264.1 million, becoming the 12th highest-grossing of 2000. Against a budget of $93 million, the film was a box office success.

North America

Domestically, the film opened in November 3, 2000, earning $13.7 million in its opening day, debuting at the top of the box office. For its first weekend, the film grossed $40.1 million dethroning Meet the Parents, which had stayed at number-one for four weeks. Eventually, Charlie's Angels grossed a total of $125,305,545 domestically.

Critical reception

Charlie's Angels received generally positive reviews from critics, some action scenes, the humor of the film and the performances of Diaz and Murray were highly praised. On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has a 67% "Fresh" rating based on 141 reviews, despite the lower 45% audience rating. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from film critics, it has a rating score of 52, indicating "mixed or average reviews".

During the making of Blade II, Guillermo del Toro commented that while films like Charlie's Angels had helped to popularize the wire fu style of fighting choreography in Western films, they also served as a "nail in the coffin" and prompted many filmmakers to want to get back to more "hard-hitting" action.[2] "The moment you see Cameron Diaz flying in the air, and you know that she is incapable of flying in the air and kicking five guys... you realize that it is done using wires. [...] I mean, Charlie's Angels was great, but it[s fighting style] was almost satirical."[2]

Home media

Charlie's Angels was released on both VHS and DVD on 27 March 2001.

Sequel

A sequel called Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle released in 2003. Cameron Diaz, Drew Barrymore and Lucy Liu reprised their roles, as did John Forsythe as the voice of Charlie in his last film role. Bernie Mac replaced Bill Murray as Bosley, Demi Moore had a major role, and Jaclyn Smith reprised her role of Kelly Garrett from the original television series.

Reboot

On September 15, 2015, The Hollywood Reporter has reported that Sony are rebooting the film with Elizabeth Banks both producing with her producing partner and husband Max Handelman and the studio are in negotiations with her to direct the film.[3] On April 13, 2016, Sony has confirmed that Banks will direct the reboot.[4] On May 23, 2017, the reboot was scheduled for a June 7, 2019 release.

References

  1. ↑ "Charlie's Angels (15)". British Board of Film Classification. November 8, 2000. Retrieved October 28, 2016.
  2. 1 2 "Production Workshop" documentary. Blade II DVD. Roadshow Entertainment, 2002.
  3. ↑ Kit, Borys (September 15, 2015). "Elizabeth Banks in Talks to Direct New 'Charlie's Angels' Movie (Exclusive)". The Hollywood Reporter.
  4. ↑ Franich, Darren (April 13, 2016). "Sony confirms Charlie's Angels reboot, Jump Street-Men in Black crossover". entertainment Weekly. Retrieved April 13, 2016.
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