Charlie's Angels

[osprey_archer]

I meant to see Charlie's Angels in theaters last fall, and then for one reason or another it never happened... so last night Julie and I finally watched it, and I'm kicking myself for not seeing it on the big screen when I had the chance, because it's loads of fun and I think it would have been even more fun with a whole theater full of people to laugh along with the jokes.

A few things I liked, in no particular order:

- it is a very funny movie; Kristin Stewart in particular gets some amazing lines. She looks like she had an amazing time making this movie. Well, really I got that vibe from most of the actors, but Kristin Stewart especially seems to have been having a blast. She gets to dress up as a jockey, for goodness sake!

- but at the same time there's an acknowledgment that this kind of exciting espionage has a cost in human lives, both in agents and in bystanders, which makes the movie feel a little more grounded than, say, The Spy Who Dumped Me (which I also love, but definitely the vibe is very different).

- the newbie, Elena, is realistically out of her depth at the beginning, but her skills from her previous life nonetheless make her an asset to the team right from the start

- Sabina and Jane, two more experienced Angels, have a somewhat strained working relationship at the beginning of the film, but the movie doesn't devote loads of time to bickering; the strain is palpable but understated. (I particularly appreciated this because we recently watched the 2015 Man from U.N.C.L.E., which definitely would have been improved by less bickering, or at least more affectionate bickering.)

- the beautiful establishing shots of the locations. (Hamburg in particular struck me, simply because I'd never realized it was such a lovely city.)

- there's a fight in a rock quarry which makes amaaaazing use of the quarry equipment.

Comments

[sovay]

- there's a fight in a rock quarry which makes amaaaazing use of the quarry equipment.

That does sound nice.

[osprey_archer]

There are all those rock slides and rock mashers and stuff! It would be criminal not to utilize them.

[staranise]

I found it positively harrowing, but not in a truly bad way.

[asakiyume]

Thanks to this very fun review, I had something to suggest we watch yesterday evening. We watched it and enjoyed it very much. Kristen Stewart was great! Loved her lines. And I didn't see the plot twist, so that was fun too!

[osprey_archer]

Yessss, what a good movie. And yes! The plot twist! It blew our tiny minds.

[staranise]

I still want a proper fic where Sabina is Charlie's fuckup granddaughter and only knows that her grandmother swung her the interview for this awesome job, so she always feels the shadow of nepotism clouding her every achievement, especially since she actually has a very narrow and specialized skillset and keeps getting thrown into jobs that require stuff she was never trained to do.

[osprey_archer]

That sounds like it would make an amazing Yuletide prompt.