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COLUMN NINETY-SIX, SEPTEMBER 1, 2003
(Copyright © 2003 The Blacklisted Journalist)

CHARLIE'S ANGELS 2: FULL THROTTLE
(The Film Business As A Parody Of Itself)

In Charlies Angels 2 are Lost In Space's Matt LeBlanc and Terminator 2's Robert Patrick lost in some sort of lesbionic sci-fi thriller cracking jokes about life, music, film as art, and ourselves. Not to give too much credit to the filmmakers generating this beautifully expensive fluff. They certainly aren't laying hidden meaning between the lines, but in their naivete, they've done just that. Out of the mouths of babes...

This review of Charlies Angels 2 written in the theater looks a lot like the All Movie Guide's (www.allmovie.com ) review of Charlies Angels 1, a review I've not read before. That doesn't mean that AMG critic Jessica Frost has some psychic connection with me (I write for their music division), what it means is that these filmmakers have absolutely no imagination and have, in fact, not only copied movies already in existence, THEY'VE COPIED THEIR OWN MOVIE!

Check out Ms. Frost's review:
http://www.allmovie.com/cg/avg.dll?p=avg&sql=A213966 

Demi Moore looks like someone beat her up. She is not the foxy bitch of Disclosure. In fact, she looks like the chick from Disclosure's mom playing the same selfish games. That Michael Crichton story was one of the first of the Cyberworld films, and a predecessor to The Matrix. Boy do they go after Matrix Re-Loaded here in CA2's action scenes, and by including Terminator 2 actor Robert Patrick the week before the release of Terminator 3 (with a scene slightly reminiscent of Arnold Schwarzenegger. walking out of the fire), producer Barrymore and director McG cross the line of good natured humor to absolute travesty. All so expensive and glitzy and stunning to the eye upon first glance, one wonders why the industry decided we needed Mariah Carey to come back from the dead in Glitter 2. And instead of blasting John Forsythe's Radio Shack speaker to smithereens, too bad they didn't kill Charlie off in this episode. Or maybe they did and we just don't know it yet. Those Joan Collins in the pool with Linda Evans bitch-fight scenes, Alexis v. Krystal, are done in triplicate here. Meanwhile men of all colors, races and creeds need to protest Bill Murray morphing in to Ocean's  Eleven's Bernie Mac who is demeaned and humiliated by the not-so-divine secrets of this Ya Ya Sisterhood.

There's star power for sure in Charlies Angels 2, and a terrific soundtrack with snippets of David Bowie's Rebel Rebel, M.C. Hammer, Tony Basil, and even Kid Rock with Nickelback doing Saturday Night's Alright For A Fight but somehow I missed the appearance of Bruce Willis in this.

Director Joseph McGinty Mitchell McG creates one of the most colorful pictures in recent memory, real Pleasantville meets Edward Scissorhands stuff, pastels and neons adorning this flavorful sensory overload, but as I was going to write "What's the point", Boston Herald critic Jim Verniere beat me to the punch with his single word "Why?" 

This movie doesn't even parody Bond, The Matrix, Terminator and the TV series which spawned it very well. It is a parody of a parody, much like that line in the aforementioned Disclosure "what makes a
clich? a clich??" What makes a parody of a parody an effective parody? The joke is on anyone who spent the $9 to see this---I just had to get out of the house and out of the heat, so this writer got what he paid for---some air conditioning!

Karen Glauber is the music consultant and she has a potential Big Chill soundtrack on her hands for Columbia Records. Not very creative, but enough good hit records that haven't been heard in this order, a dizzying array of glam rock, heavy metal, borderline punk, rap, pop, and musical movements from the '70s, '80s, '90s and today. Kind of like someone was cruising www.kazaa.com picking and choosing stuff from way back in their memories. Again, it's like it fell together by accident. Drew Barrymore is a producer of this? Someone should
see if she has a substance abuse problem. Another one of those films which could've been very special, maximum extreme 2 action in the Coal Bowl scene of dirt bike riders killing and maiming, bringing to life the film referenced in this film that allegedly stars "Jason", Matt LeBlanc. LeBlanc loses that movie star virility he projected in Lost In Space, emasculated, castrated here by the overpowering feminine overkill. Now had Demi Moore teamed up with the three Charlies Angels to have four Charlies Angels and plunged this into a Tom Cruise Mission Impossible 1 type tale, it could have been marvelous. Instead it becomes a totally disposable action film which won't be remembered after the summer of 2003 in the way Matrix Reloaded,
Terminator 3 and other films will be. That being said, the verdict is Full Throttle is a total artistic failure.  ##

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