The original CHARLIE’S ANGELS TV show (1976-1981) premiered when I was in middle school, so at the time, for obvious reasons, the show caught my attention. But as an adult seeing it years later it never did much for me, and I really never considered myself much of a fan.

Likewise, although the rebooted CHARLIE’S ANGELS movies in the early 2000s starring Cameron Diaz, Drew Barrymore, and Lucy Liu performed well at the box office, I wasn’t a fan of these movies either as I didn’t really enjoy the move to turning the series into a comedy.

So, if you asked me if I’d be seeing yet another reboot of the series, my answer would most likely be no. I would have pretty much zero interest in seeing it.

Except when I read that Elizabeth Banks, an actress I enjoy a lot, was directing, writing, and starring in it. Furthermore, the cast was also going to include Kristen Stewart, another actress I really enjoy, and so against my better judgment, I went to the theater to check out this latest edition of CHARLIE’S ANGELS (2019).

I was not disappointed.

Elizabeth Banks’ CHARLIES ANGELS is a stylish polished action flick with women doing all the butt kicking, and this time, even though the tone for the most part is light, this story does not hide behind comedy to make its point. These women kick butt for real, and it’s believable.

One of my favorite scenes is the film’s finale where the villain boasts that he has the Angels surrounded, and he has, with a small army of henchmen at his disposal, but it’s the Angels who have the last laugh, as unnoticed among these macho thugs stand a multitude of beautiful women, guests of the elegant party they’re all attending, and these women are not there just to be looked at. They’re there to fight. It’s a moment that in a quiet subtle way reveals that men so often aren’t even paying attention to the women in the room, as if they couldn’t possibly be a threat. The Angels’ back-up are literally invisible to their enemies, as they hide in plain sight. It’s a great moment in what otherwise is a pretty standard actioner.

The action scenes are fun and exciting, and Banks handles them well. She has less success with the screenplay which provides a forgettable story that serves only as a bare framework for the action scenes. Banks scores higher with some of the dialogue, which is entertaining, and some of the tweaks she makes to the ANGELS canon, like having “Bosley” be a code name for multiple handlers around the globe.

The plot is about a device that is about to revolutionize the energy industry, but an employee of the company developing the device, Elena Houghlin (Naomi Scott) discovers a flaw and realizes it could easily be turned into a weapon. Her efforts to warn her superiors are ignored, and so she turns to one of the “Bosleys”  (Djimon Hounsou) for help.

When the device is stolen, the Angels jump into action led by Sabina (Kristen Stewart) and Jane (Ella Ballinska), along with Elena who eventually becomes the latest Angel recruit.

As I said, the plot is pretty meager.

The best performance in the movie belongs to Kristen Stewart— Bella who? Stewart has come a long way from the TWILIGHT series, and her performance here as the quirky Sabina who has no filter for when it comes to saying the wrong thing is one of the liveliest parts of the movie.

But I also enjoyed Naomi Scott as the green Elena Houghlin who becomes Angel material while working on this job. Likewise, Ella Balinska is fun and believable as Jane, the former MI6 agent now turned Angel. Basically, the spirited performances by all three of these actors lifts the material to the point where I didn’t care that the plot was rather dumb. They made the story enjoyable.

Writer/director Elizabeth Banks plays the chief Bosley, and Patrick Stewart hams it up as the original Bosley who doesn’t take “retirement” all that well. Stewart is always fun to watch and his presence adds a lot to this one.

Jonathan Tucker makes for a formidable assassin named Hodak who would have been memorable had he possessed some personality.

And in a fun reveal at the end, we get to see who is now running the Angel’s organization for Charlie, and it’s an original cast member!

This 2019 CHARLIE’S ANGELS is certainly a mixed bag. The nothing story does the film no favors, but the spirited performances by the three leads and effective direction by Elizabeth Banks lift it to a level that makes it a rather enjoyable if not mindless action film.

Hey, men like Stallone and Schwarznegger have built their careers making mindless movies like this. If CHARLIE’S ANGELS says anything, it’s that women can make them too.

—END—