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Film by Julie Pithers CHARLIE’S ANGELS Starring Drew Barrymore, Cameron Diaz, Lucy Liu Starts Friday, November 3 Check listings To be completely honest, I was more of a Bionic Woman girl. Even as a pre-teen I could see there would never be an episode in which Charlie’s Angels would have to wear overalls and protective glasses to infiltrate a chicken plucking factory. This was a show for boys, full of massage parlour and brothel plots. Well, in the politically correct 2000s, the movie doesn’t ignore that fact – it celebrates it. They even have a reference to the "Angels In Chains" episode in which the Angels (Jill, Kelly and Sabrina) infiltrated a women’s prison (in a sweaty swamp) where they believed there was a crooked warden running a brothel of inmates. The whole thing is an absolute send-up of the Spelling Production T & A extravaganza. Only this is totally action packed. POW! ZONK! SPAMMO! These Angels are flying through the air, kickin’ bad guy ass, like they’re in The Matrix. Dylan (Drew Barrymore) is the bad-girl, skanky thang with the brain of Stephen Hawking. Alex (Lucy Liu) is the no-nonsense fighting machine/arms expert who is torn about whether to tell her boyfriend about her job. And Natalie (Cameron Diaz) is the daffy, idiot savant with a penchant for driving fast. They are all martial artists extrordinaire. Bringing up the rear is the ever-affable Bosley, played subtly by Bill Murray. This movie looks fabulous and is clever in its use of styles and devices. The settings are hilariously TV – a auto racing track, a Japanese Shinto house (for Geisha scenes) and even a castle where the evil gang hangs out doing their evil-doings. Everything is a variation on a theme. Even the orchestration steals freely from James Bond and The Avengers. Lines are suspiciously close to other film dialogue, like when Dylan is tied up in a chair with the baddies descending – she uses an old trick that was last seen in The Princess Bride , in which Westly buys time by telling Prince Humperdinck how he is going to kill him although Humperdinck appears to be in the driver’s seat. The writing is the only thing that is sloppy (that and Drew Barrymore’s moonwalk dance). Everything feels like it should be funnier. Don’t get me wrong – it is very funny. Particularly if you were raised by TV. (I was the only one in the theatre laughing when the inflight movie in the opening scene was "TJ Hooker: The Movie.") But there was so much effort put into the action and the look of the thing, it seemed like the one-liners were first drafts and needed some tinkering. Oh right, the plot – well, the Angels are called in when a software executive is kidnapped by his software rival. The girls get in trouble, they get into slutty costumes, they fall in love, they beat the shit out of the bad guys, they get in really, really deep trouble and they almost see who Charlie is. It’s like I’m back in my parent’s basement putting off my homework.

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