Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle

The first Charlie's Angels movie was a lightning strike of sexy, silly, butt-kicking-babe action-flick fun--but at least it made an attempt to have an intelligible plot with genuine stakes, cool twists, clever camp, and memorable characters. This sequel only bothers with a minute or two of story in each reel as it tries to skate by on cheap wisecracks and surprise cameos while mired in overproduced, three-ring-circus-like, exclamation-point action scenes. The Angels drive a truck over a dam, and out pops a helicopter in which they escape from an army of bad guys! The Angels enter a motocross race in which bikes collide and explode! The Angels fight off two dozen punk-poser Irish gangsters in slow-mo/fast-mo über-choreographed kung fu! Yet for all of this over-fabricated big-budget flash (directed by the flashily-named "McG"), Full Throttle has a detached, videogame quality that makes it all so artificial as to be boring. Stars Drew Barrymore, Cameron Diaz, and Lucy Liu are obviously having a ball while goofing off and getting paid millions, but as far as the audience goes, the movie seems to be screaming, "you had to be there!" Not recommended. [Note: Available in both an “unrated” widescreen version (with a few extra action snippets) and a PG-13 full screen version, DVD extras include two audio commentaries (one by director McG--with onscreen telestrator graphics; the other by writers John August, Cormac Wibberley, and Marianne Wibberley); an “Angel-Vision” trivia track viewing option with onscreen facts and branching links to special segments; featurettes including “Pussycat Dolls” (5 min.), “Rolling with the Punches” (6 min.) on stunts, “XXX-treme Angels” (9 min.) on motocross (these first three featurettes appear on the “unrated” version only), “Full Throttle” (18 min.) on cars, “Designing Angels” (7 min.) on production design, “There's No Such Thing as a Short Shot, Only an Overworked Producer” (9 min.) on budget and production, and “Angels Makeover: Hansen Dam” (4 min.) about the dam scene in teasers; a four-minute “Dream Duds” costume montage; 13 “Cameo-graphy” segments with facts and clips of celebrities who made appearances in the film; 11 song segments from “Full Throttle Jukebox” with intros by McG (on the ”unrated” version only); the music video “Feel Good Time” by Pink, featuring William Orbit; a shameless  “Shop the Scene” weblink to shopping for fashions and accessories from the film; selected cast/crew filmographies; trailers; and DVD-ROM features (including the “Charlie's Angels: Angel X” online game). Bottom line: lots of extras for a toss-off film.] (R. Blackwelder)