By: Lauren Garabedian
NIAGARA UNIVERSITY, N.Y.- The next generation of fearless “Charlie’s Angels” are working for the mysterious Charles Townsend, whose security agency has expanded internationally. Almost two decades since the popular TV franchise, director Elizabeth Banks re-imagines the Angels by connecting them with baby boomers through an empowering women theme.
Elena Houghlin (Naomi Scott) is a skilled engineer who developed a new technology called Calisto that could provide clean energy wirelessly. She however finds a defect that could be exploited to kill a person. Elena’s passion makes Charlie’s Angels, Sabina (Kristen Stewart) and Jane Kano (Ella Balinska) recruit her into the elite Townsend Agency, where highly trained women take on the dangerous world of private investigation. They fight to find all Calisto’s before they fall into the wrong hands.
Charlie’s Angels change from the sexualizing its women to empowering them. They outwit and outfight emasculated males. Kristen Stewart’s character contains most of the witty one-liners while being quirky, energetic and courageous. Ella Balinska’s character is a tough-as-nails Jane. Elizabeth Banks herself is a worthy Bosley, which is another word for a lieutenant in the agency’s ranking.
The action scenes aren’t too inventive for the audience as well as the comedic elements in the film don’t work as well as the script intends, making for some awkward moments that fall flat. The overly hyped soundtrack weighs the screenplay down. The femmistic message is well-intended, but the execution doesn’t always do it justice. The new version of the franchise doesn’t live up to the nostalgic Angels played by Kate Jackson, Farrah Fawcett and Kelly Garrett in the Television series and Cameron Diaz, Drew Barrymore and Lucy Liu in the 2000s films. Although it doesn’t live up to the expectations of the franchise, the new re-imagining of the angels is still entertaining to see.
Niagara Wire 