‘Charlie’s Angels’ fall to Earth in latest movie

Posted on November 29, 2019

By MARK VIOLA

The original “Charlie’s Angels” television series stopped airing a few months after I was born, so I can’t say I ever watched the show about three female private investigators and their handler Bosley, who all worked for a man they never saw. I did watch the two feature films from the early 2000s, although I don’t actually remember much about them.

Now we have the latest version, 2019’s “Charlie’s Angels,” written and directed by Elizabeth Banks (“Pitch Perfect 2”), who also stars in the film. In this one, the Angels have expanded into an international operation, with multiple people taking the title of Bosley and teams stationed around the world to answer the call when the need arises.

On the surface, the concept is interesting, upping the action by turning what began as a private investigation service into an international intelligence agency. Unfortunately, in an attempt to add a few extra plot twists, the story becomes overly convoluted, and ultimately several characters’ decisions simply don’t make much sense if you think about the movie as a whole.

The movie can be entertaining at times, but one of the biggest issues is the fact that it never seems to have a clear idea of just what kind of movie it wants to be. Sometimes it’s an action movie. Sometimes it’s a comedy. While those two are not necessarily mutually exclusive, it sometimes feels like two very different movies from one scene to the next.

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