Charlie’s Angels * (2019, Kristen Stewart, Naomi Scott, Ella Balinska) – Movie Review

Charlie’s Angels (2019) is empty-headed adventure comedy hokum, with Kristen Stewart, Naomi Scott, Ella Balinska and Elizabeth Banks all pleasant presences and working hard enough but to little avail. They are chasing after some ludicrous McGuffin in an absurd spy plot that doesn’t take the spy genre or the action genre seriously enough, no nothing like seriously enough, leaving the slack and silly laughs all that’s really left.

Ella Balinska plays young systems engineer Jane Kano, who blows the whistle on a piece of her company’s dangerous technology that then everybody else is chasing after for nefarious reasons. Kristen Stewart and Naomi Scott star as dare-devil Angels Sabina and Elena, and Elizabeth Banks and Djimon Hounsou play their multiple Bosley bosses. Patrick Stewart plays the retiring security agency boss John Bosley, whose plan, it turns out isn’t a life of gardening.

None of these performances is very good, but Patrick Stewart is pretty bad, all hammy and plummy, and with a lot to do, though he is loads better than Nat Faxon as Jane Kano’s smug and smarmy boss Peter Fleming, and he is loads better than Sam Claflin, who is very bad as her big boss Alexander Brock. Not one of these people convinces you that they would make a real spy or a real businessman/ woman.

Elizabeth Banks writes the screenplay and directs the film too. It is an Elizabeth Banks film. That is clearly very enterprising, but she is over-stretched and needs some back-up, including a team of gag and plot writers. The film’s action is about as silly as its comedy. Basically, it feels like everyone is flogging a dead horse. Some franchises just don’t need rebooting.

Kristen Stewart looks lovely in all sorts of different outfits, and she can act, but her running and fighting leave something to be desired. At least you feel the impressive Naomi Scott might be able to do some of the ass-kicking in real life.

I have to admit that I did quite like Jonathan Tucker’s relentless killer Hodak, very much in the Robert Patrick Terminator 2 mould, and Chris Pang’s quizzical charmer Jonny Smith. And Elizabeth Banks ensures she is pleasant company too.

It was made on a tight budget of $48 million, so it has a chance of a profit. The original 2000 Charlie’s Angels cost $93,000,000 and the 2013 sequel Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle $120,000,000. The huge budget of the second film effectively ended the first run.

© Derek Winnert 2019 Movie Review

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