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'Full Throttle' is a bore with impossible stunts, no plot
Lucy Liu, Bernie Mac, Drew Barrymore and Cameron Diaz
Columbia Pictures
Director: McG.
Stars: Cameron Diaz, Drew Barrymore, Lucy Lu.
MPAA rating: PG-13, for action violence, sensuality and language/innuendo.
The plot, which barely surfaces in the final cut, involves two rings that, possessed by the same person, will reveal the identities of everyone in the Witness Protection Plan.
Dylan (Drew Barrymore), who happens to be among the vulnerable, sent up Irish Mafioso Seamus O'Grady (Justin Theroux).
Now he's out and very annoyed. They probably ran the first "Charlie's Angels" every night he was in stir.
Along with best friend angels Natalie (Cameron Diaz) and Alex (Lucy Lu), Dylan must dodge Seamus plus returning villain Thin Man (Crispin Glover) and armies of faceless thugs.
The women, who survive death and near fatalities repeatedly, perform the sort of feats that are only possible through special effects and rapid editing. The biggest stunts during a preview screening were yawning quietly and staying awake.
Director McG (Joseph McGinty Nichol), whose other claim to fame is the first "Charlie's Angels" (2000), uses slo-mo, fast-mo, fires and explosions in an endless loop of generic fantasy action shots.
The screenplay by John August, Cormac and Marianne Wibberley has the continuity of smoke. No one notion survives a scene and a half. There's a serious assumption throughout that the audience has an attention impairment.
The only moments bordering on humor belong to John Cleese as Alex's father, incredulous in that tactful British manner at learning his daughter is in dangerous government service.
Bernie Mac appears as Jimmy Bosley, brother of the character Bill Murray played in the original. (You might have read accounts three years ago of Murray and Lu barely surviving the experience of working together.)
Several celebrities pop in for a scene or two.
TV angel Jaclyn Smith reprises the role of Kelly Garrett just long enough to remind us she's alive, attractive and available.
Matt LeBlanc is Alex's boyfriend Jason, and Luke Wilson is Natalie's beau Pete -- apparently the male equivalent of Bond girls.
Demi Moore has a supporting role as ex-angel Madison. Moore's ex, Bruce Willis, has a couple of minutes, as do Carrie Fisher, Robert Forster, Eric Bogosian and the voice of John Forsythe as Charlie.
Evocations of "Cape Fear," "The Sound of Music," "Flashdance," "Grease" and "Saturday Night Fever" are limp and lack a lick of sense.
As overproduced as it is, "Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle" is chintzy on one thing even fantasies require -- the extravagance of continuity.
