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Box office detectives have been working overtime all week long to try and get to the bottom of the failure of the Charlie's Angels reboot. So far, a poor marketing campaign from Sony, lack of "bankability" of the lead actors and an unwillingness for audiences to accept female-led action movies have emerged as the top theories as to why the 2019 Angels got their wings clipped. My two center on the matter: it was just another IP that people stopped caring about for whatever reason. Trying to figure out what hit titles from yesteryear can find success once again in the present day will largely remain an uncrackable code-especially for franchises that don't have the luxury of basking in the infallible, money-printing aura of Disney. For every Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle, Halloween and Ocean's Eight, there's going to be a Men in Black: International, The Mummy and King Arthur: Legend of the Sword. Since massive hit franchises play such a pivotal role in achieving success in the industry, studios are going to have to continue engaging in this high-risk practice to try and stay afloat in this ultracompetitive era where every financial miscalculation has potentially dire consequences.
As for the actual on-screen product, the only sin Charlie's Angels commits is that nothing really stands out about it. While the solid chemistry between the Angels (Kristen Stewart, Naomi Scott, Ella Balinska) along with the joy writer/director/star Elizabeth Banks displays in putting a modern spin on this iconic franchise allow it to be a pretty breezy ride, that isn't enough to shake the "been there, done that" feeling that lurks in the background of this globe-trotting actioner. The "tech company secretly mines dangerous weapon" plot offers up literally no surprises, the paper thin villains (Sam Claflin, Nat Faxon, third person I can't disclose with providing spoilers) feel more like narrative formalities than actual threats to the protagonists and despite being pretty well-choregraphed, the action sequences are bizarrely small in scale for a mid-budgeted studio movie. General competency in most areas is enough for a genre obsessive like myself to have a good time, but you're going to need to do better than that to please people that don't belong in that camp and no amount of good intentions or enthusiasm for the Charlie's Angels brand can cover up the lack of truly electrifying action spectacle this film has.
Ultimately, it kind of sucks that this revamped Charlie's Angels is going to be laid to rest before it got a chance to hit its stride. With its well-matched leads and a writer/director that was visibly invested in the world she was creating, there was a lot of potential for a nice little franchise to emerge. A lot of its faults could've been corrected by simply adding more elaborate action sequences and getting seasoned comedic performer Banks to add some more humor to the proceedings, but alas the people have spoken and now we're left to wonder what could've been in a less volatile time at the box office.
As for the actual on-screen product, the only sin Charlie's Angels commits is that nothing really stands out about it. While the solid chemistry between the Angels (Kristen Stewart, Naomi Scott, Ella Balinska) along with the joy writer/director/star Elizabeth Banks displays in putting a modern spin on this iconic franchise allow it to be a pretty breezy ride, that isn't enough to shake the "been there, done that" feeling that lurks in the background of this globe-trotting actioner. The "tech company secretly mines dangerous weapon" plot offers up literally no surprises, the paper thin villains (Sam Claflin, Nat Faxon, third person I can't disclose with providing spoilers) feel more like narrative formalities than actual threats to the protagonists and despite being pretty well-choregraphed, the action sequences are bizarrely small in scale for a mid-budgeted studio movie. General competency in most areas is enough for a genre obsessive like myself to have a good time, but you're going to need to do better than that to please people that don't belong in that camp and no amount of good intentions or enthusiasm for the Charlie's Angels brand can cover up the lack of truly electrifying action spectacle this film has.
Ultimately, it kind of sucks that this revamped Charlie's Angels is going to be laid to rest before it got a chance to hit its stride. With its well-matched leads and a writer/director that was visibly invested in the world she was creating, there was a lot of potential for a nice little franchise to emerge. A lot of its faults could've been corrected by simply adding more elaborate action sequences and getting seasoned comedic performer Banks to add some more humor to the proceedings, but alas the people have spoken and now we're left to wonder what could've been in a less volatile time at the box office.
Grade: B
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