Charlie's Angels

Charlie's Angels is a sequel (of sorts) to both the 70s television show and the movies from the early 2000s, Charlie's Angels and Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle. The Townsend Agency has gone global, there are now Angels in offices all around the world (and for reasons never explored, each has a support agent all of whom use the codename of Bosley). The team the film focuses on is made up of former heiress and thief Sabina Wilson (Kristen Stewart) and former MI6 agent Jane Kano (Ella Balinska) who are assigned to help programmer Elena Houghlin (Naomi Scott) who has uncovered some dangerous truths about her company's new technology. After extraction, Elena's skill set proves useful and she soon becomes one of the team.

The movie highlights some of the goofiness of the original television show in terms of disguises and planning, it also ratches up the action quite a bit. There are plots and subplots here, some making the main story more convoluted than necessary and others simply used as filler.

However, where writer/director Elizabeth Banks, who also stars as one of the Bosleys, goes wrong is mismanaging the scale the film goes for. With agents all over the world, it would be simple for Jane and Sabina to get back-up... yet they don't? Are you telling me after working jobs with various Angels all over the world there isn't a single Angel either of them trusts? That's not exactly a glowing recommendation for the Townsend Agency. The similarly-named Bosleys are also problematic, especially as it leads Banks down a path to make the same mistake Brian De Palma made in the first Mission: Impossible film by unnecessarily turning a character into a villain for the sake of the plot. Charlie's Angels is available on 4K, Blu-ray, DVD, and various streaming services.