Movie Review: Charlie's Angels

Charlie's Angels *** / *****

Directed by: Elizabeth Banks.

Written by: Elizabeth Banks and Carlo Bernard and Semi Chellas and Craig Mazin and Doug Miro and Jay Basu and Evan Spiliotopoulos and David Auburn based on characters created by Ivan Goff and Ben Roberts.

Starring: Kristen Stewart (Sabina Wilson), Naomi Scott (Elena Houghlin), Ella Balinska (Jane Kano), Elizabeth Banks (Bosley), Patrick Stewart (Bosley), Djimon Hounsou (Edgar Bosley), Sam Claflin (Alexander Brock), Jonathan Tucker (Hodak), Nat Faxon (Peter Fleming), Chris Pang (Jonny Smith), Luis Gerardo Méndez (The Saint), Noah Centineo (Langston). 

 

I’m really starting to wonder if there is anything that Kristen Stewart cannot do. She held together the awful Twilight franchise, and since then has mainly done daring indies with a variety of great directors like Olivier Assayas. She has the kind of screen presence that you cannot teach – and has been one of the most consistently great actresses of her generation for a while now. Now, in a reboot of Charlie’s Angels of all things, Stewart delivers the kind of delightful, somewhat demented movie star turn that you didn’t quite know she had in her. It’s a funny, eccentric, genuinely weird performance – and it completely works in the center of this would-be franchise starter that won’t (it made no money opening weekend – which is a pity). The rest of co-star/co-writer/director Elizabeth Banks’ reboot is fun as well. It’s not deep in anyway, the plot is completely meaningless and instantly forgettable, and you will likely forget anything in the movie that isn’t Stewart – but as the movie plays, it’s a lot of silly fun – a corrective to the jiggle fest TV show and the male gaze of McG that had defined the franchise up until now.

 

In the film, Stewart is Sabina – an heiress turned criminal turned Angel, who is teamed up with former MI:6 agent Jane (Ella Balinska) to help tech genius Elena (Naomi Scott), who has created some sort of MacGuffin that can revolutionize energy, but could also be used to kill people without a trace. Her boss has it now, and she needs to get it back and fix it – but now there is an assassin on their tail, and they have to hop all over Europe to try and track it down, and there are a lot of people named Bosley (mainly, Banks herself) and the trio of women fight, quip and occasionally dance their way through everything, and look amazing while doing it – the clothing budget on this film must have been through the roof.

 

As a filmmaker, Banks doesn’t really try and reinvent anything here – but she certainly shifts the perspective of the gaze involved. There is no leering here, and while all three women (to say nothing of Banks herself) are of course gorgeous, and look amazing at every stage of the movie – it’s not the kind of thing that makes you feel guilty or sleazy for looking. It is about their own empowerment – or about playing men for the idiots we so clearly often are. It’s a nice change of pace.

 

The film moves along at a brisk pace – and for the most part is fun. I’m not sure I could tell you what the thingamajig at the center of the movie actually was supposed to do, but I don’t think anyone else could either – it was designed to fit in a suitcase for plot purposes, and it works. The performances, aside from Stewart, are all quite good in their own way. Scott, one of my favorite things in the otherwise poor Aladdin remake this year, makes a nice every woman – the woman who goes to work every day, and has to deal with the causal misogyny from everyone from her boss to the security guard, and do it with a smile. Ella Balinska as Jane is probably best when she is kicking ass – which she does well.

 

In short, Charlie’s Angels is goofy fun – and that is all it aspires to be. It doesn’t reinvent anything, but it does change things enough to make it somewhat refreshing. And every time Stewart is onscreen, you are seeing a truly bizarrely great performance in a movie that mostly plays it safe.