When a wealthy computer genius named Eric Knox (Sam Rockwell) is kidnapped, the girls must find a way to rescue him after being hired by his business partner, the lovely Vivian Woodward (Kelly Lynch). The obvious suspect is Roger Corwin (Tim Curry), Knox's rival and the man who tried to buy him out after Knox created an amazing voice-ID software. But things are not as they seem and before you know it, the girls will have to not only infiltrate Corwin's complex, but steal DNA identities, fight a mysterious and dangerous creep known only as "The Thin Man" (Crispin Glover) and risk their lives in a multitude of sexy and dangerous ways.
What I loved about Charlie's Angels was the fact that these girls were not afraid to make fun of themselves. This movie is campy and funny and damn proud of it. Whether it is the multitude of costumes they don or the fact that they are all trying to lead "normal" cover lives, including having cell phone calls to potential boyfriends while they are fighting off bad guys, they have fun doing it. In the midst of all of their crime-fighting antics, Natalie meets Pete (Luke Wilson), a waiter at a party, and she falls for him. Alex is in a relationship with Jason (Matt Leblanc), an action movie star who thinks she works as a bikini waxer. And poor Dylan is just unlucky in love, whether she finds herself with a wacky sailor named "The Chad" (Tom Green) or a client who isn't all he appears.
Charlie's Angels is highly stylized with lots of explosions and a super-saturated color pallette. The Angels' world is filled with color, action and over-the-top everything. The film really benefits from the high def treatment of Blu-ray and if you dare doubt it, check out the featurettes since they are in standard def. This is the way Charlie's Angels was meant to be viewed.
Speaking of featurettes, there are a number of them, all short and sweet. They cover everything from the wardrobe and crazy costumes the girls don, to the wire work they had to do for the amazing fight scenes, to McG himself, to even their work with martial arts master, Cheung-Yan Yuen of The Matrix fame. It's all good stuff and worth watching. There are also some deleted scenes, bloopers and outtakes, which are lots of fun, a couple of music videos from the soundtrack and commentary by McG and the cinematographer.
Charlie's Angels is everything a great popcorn flick should be - a beautiful cast, a fun script, and lots of action. I'm sure some of my film elitist friends out there would disagree (yes, StarScream - I can almost hear you groaning from here), but for me, I like to have fun watching a movie and this one fits the bill. If you don't already have this one in your collection and you enjoy silly comedy action flicks, snag this one on Blu-ray since it looks and sounds terrific.
