Charlie's Angels (2000 film)

Charlie's Angels is a 2000 American action comedy film directed by McG, and written by Ryan Rowe, Ed Solomon, and John August. It is the first installment in the Charlie's Angels film series based on the television series of the same name created by Ivan Goff and Ben Roberts, which is also a continuation of the series story. Unlike the original series, which had dramatic elements, the film features more comical elements.

It stars Cameron Diaz, Drew Barrymore, and Lucy Liu as three women working in a private detective agency in Los Angeles. John Forsythe reprised his role as the unseen Charlie's voice from the original series. Making cameo appearances in the film are Tom Green (who was dating Barrymore at the time of production) and LL Cool J.

The film was released on November 3, 2000 in the United States by Columbia Pictures, and received mixed to positive reviews from critics. It is later followed by sequels Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle in 2003 and the 2019 film of the same name.

Plot
Natalie Cook (Cameron Diaz) Dylan Sanders (Drew Barrymore) and Alex Munday (Lucy Liu) are the "Angels", three talented, tough, attractive women who work as private investigators together for an unseen millionaire named Charlie (voiced by John Forsythe). Charlie uses a speaker in his offices to communicate with the Angels, and his assistant Bosley (Bill Murray) works with them directly when needed.

Charlie assigns the Angels to find Eric Knox (Sam Rockwell), a software genius who created a revolutionary voice-recognition system and heads his own company, Knox Enterprises. Knox is believed to have been kidnapped by Roger Corwin (Tim Curry), who runs a communications-satellite company called Redstar. The Angels infiltrate a party held by Corwin and spot a suspicious-looking man that they had previously seen from surveillance videos of Knox's kidnapping. Dubbing him the "Thin Man" (Crispin Glover), the Angels chase him down and fight him; he gets away but the Angels find Knox, safely held nearby.

After the Angels reunite Knox with his business partner Vivian Wood (Kelly Lynch), Charlie explains that they must determine whether the Thin Man has stolen Knox's voice-recognition software. The Angels infiltrate Redstar headquarters, fool the security system, and plant a device in the central computer that will enable them to explore it remotely. They retire for the night after giving Bosley the laptop computer that communicates with the Redstar computer. Dylan takes up Knox's offer to spend the night with him, and they end up having sex. Afterwards, Knox betrays her; simultaneously, attacks are made on Natalie and Alex, Bosley is captured by Vivian, and Corwin is murdered by the Thin Man. Knox tells Dylan his kidnapping was all faked to get the Angels to help him access the Redstar satellite network. He plans to use it along with his voice recognition software to find and kill Charlie, who Knox asserts killed his father in the Vietnam War.

Dylan escapes and reunites with Natalie and Alex, who survived their attacks. They approach Charlie's offices just as the building explodes. They find a radio transmitter that Bosley is able to communicate through via a radio transmitter implanted in a tooth. Bosley provides enough information of his place of captive to allow Natalie to deduce its location, an abandoned lighthouse. With help from Dylan's current boyfriend Chad (Tom Green) the Angels stealthily approach the lighthouse. On finding Knox, Dylan is tied up and gagged with duct tape by Knox's henchman, helplessly watching Knox triangulate Charlie's position. The Angels are too late to stop Knox from determining Charlie's location, but they rescue Bosley, Dylan fights her captors while bound to a chair, joining with the others to defeat Vivian, the Thin Man, and some henchmen before Knox blows up the lighthouse. Knox flies an attack helicopter towards Charlie's house, while Bosley helps the Angels board it. Alex reprograms the missile to have it shoot backwards, which blows up the helicopter and kills Knox while the Angels land together safely on the beach.

Seeing the opportunity to finally meet Charlie in person, they enter the beach house that Knox had targeted with the missile, but Charlie has already left. He remotely congratulates the Angels on a job well done through another speaker, and treats them and Bosley to a vacation. Charlie tells them that Knox's father was undercover; he was discovered and killed, but not by Charlie. When he speaks to the Angels unseen again by telephone on the beach, they ask if they could ever meet him in person. Dylan suspects that she sees him nearby talking into a cell phone. She doesn't tell the group, but raises a toast to Charlie. Bosley playfully douses the Angels with his drink, and they chase him laughing towards the ocean. From a distance, Charlie in silhouette watches them and walks off.

Cast

 * Cameron Diaz as Natalie Cook
 * Drew Barrymore as Dylan Sanders
 * Lucy Liu as Alex Munday
 * Bill Murray as John Bosley
 * Sam Rockwell as Eric Knox
 * Tim Curry as Roger Corwin
 * Kelly Lynch as Vivian Wood
 * Crispin Glover as Thin Man
 * Matt LeBlanc as Jason Gibbons
 * LL Cool J as Mr. Jones
 * Tom Green as Chad
 * Luke Wilson as Pete Komisky
 * John Forsythe as Charles "Charlie" Townsend (Voice)
 * Melissa McCarthy as Doris
 * Mike Smith as Knox Thug
 * Sean Whalen as Pasqual
 * Alex Trebek as Himself
 * Karen McDougal as Roger Corwin's Girlfriend
 * Rey Mysterio as Himself

Box office
The film opened on November 3, 2000, earning $13.7 million in its opening day, debuting at the top of the box office. For its first weekend, the film grossed $40.1 million dethroning Meet the Parents, which had stayed at number-one for four weeks. Eventually, Charlie's Angels grossed a total of $125,305,545 domestically.

Against a budget of $93 million Charlie's Angels grossed $125.3 million in North America and $148.8 million in other territories, for a worldwide gross of $264.1 million, making it the 12th highest-grossing film of 2000.

Critical response
Charlie's Angels received generally positive reviews from critics. On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has a 68% approval rating based on 142 reviews. The site's critical consensus reads: "Mixing tongue-in-cheek cheesecake with glossy action set pieces, Charlie's Angels is slick and resonably fun despite its lack of originality." On Metacritic, which assigns a weighted average score, it has a score of 52 out of 100 based on reviews from 34 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".

David Edelstein for Slate.com despite expecting to hate the film he found he loved it, calling it "A charming, hyper-energetic, and wittily self-aware action comedy about gorgeous girls". Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly gave the film a B grade, with particular praise for Cameron Diaz performance, saying "not just an Angel – that's a star." Peter Travers of Rolling Stone magazine calls the film a "guilty pleasure" and praises the wire work and fight choreography of Cheung-Yan Yuen. Travers is critical of the thin plot but says it is "the film’s quirky sense of mischief, which sets it apart" from lesser television to film adaptations. Desson Howe of The Washington Post says "The gals are fab. And so's the movie." He expresses mild disappointment at the men, commenting that Murray is funnier than the role written for him, and that even though Tom Green "does his weirdest best" he is only mildly amusing.

Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times called it "a movie without a brain. Charlie's Angels is like the trailer for a video game movie, lacking only the video game, and the movie" and gave it half a star out of a possible 4 stars. Manohla Dargis wrote "Of course, it's terrible – but did it have to be this bad?" Mick LaSalle of the San Francisco Chronicle called it "An utter debacle" and says the film "makes the show look like the height of creativity, imagination and restraint". LaSalle blames director McG comparing the film to a trailer or music video. He is also critical of the deliberate decision to make the three women very similar, and says "The Angels' goofiness is a big disappointment, second only to the shocking ineptitude of McG."

During the making of Blade II, Guillermo del Toro commented that while films like Charlie's Angels had helped to popularize the wire fu style of fighting choreography in Western films, they also served as a "nail in the coffin" and prompted many filmmakers to want to get back to more "hard-hitting" action. "The moment you see Cameron Diaz flying in the air, and you know that she is incapable of flying in the air and kicking five guys... you realize that it is done using wires. [...] I mean, Charlie's Angels was great, but it[s fighting style] was almost satirical," he said.

Home media
Charlie's Angels was released on both VHS and DVD on March 27, 2001, in widescreen-only on both formats. This movie is the first of the history to be released on Blu-ray Disc in 2006. Charlie's Angels is scheduled to be released on 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray on October 22, 2019.

Soundtrack
Charlie's Angels is the soundtrack album from the film of the same name. The album was released on October 24, 2000 by Columbia Records.


 * Other songs are not included in the soundtrack
 * "All the Small Things" by Blink-182
 * "Blind" by Korn
 * "Live Wire" by Mötley Crüe
 * "Wake Me Up Before You Go Go" by Wham!
 * "Money (That's What I Want)" by The Flying Lizards
 * "I Love Rock 'n' Roll" by Joan Jett and the Blackhearts
 * "Angel of the Morning" by Juice Newton
 * "Undercover Angel" by Alan O'Day
 * "Principles of Lust" by Enigma
 * "Twiggy Twiggy" by Pizzicato Five
 * "Sukiyaki" by Kyu Sakamoto
 * "Zendeko Hachijo" by Zenshuji Zendeko
 * "Smack My Bitch Up" by The Prodigy
 * "Another Town" by Transister
 * "The Power of Love" by Huey Lewis and the News
 * "Belly" by Nomad
 * "When Angels Yodel" written and arranged by Frank Marocco
 * "The Humpty Dance" by Digital Underground
 * "Miami Vice Theme" by Jan Hammer
 * "Simon Says" by Pharoahe Monch
 * "Leave You Far Behind" by Lunatic Calm
 * "Skullsplitter" by Hednoize
 * "Song 2" by Blur
 * "Billie Jean" by Michael Jackson
 * "Angel" by Rod Stewart

Sequels
A sequel called Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle released in 2003. Cameron Diaz, Drew Barrymore and Lucy Liu reprised their roles, as did John Forsythe as the voice of Charlie in his last film role. Bernie Mac replaced Bill Murray as Bosley, Demi Moore had a major role, and Jaclyn Smith reprised her role of Kelly Garrett from the original television series. The franchise were confirm for a third and fourth film, on 2004 the ideas were cancelled.

On September 15, 2015, The Hollywood Reporter has reported that Sony are rebooting the film with Elizabeth Banks both producing with her producing partner and husband Max Handelman and the studio are in negotiations with her to direct the film. On April 13, 2016, Sony has confirmed that Banks will direct the reboot.

It was later revealed that the new movie won't be a reboot or a remake of the franchise, but rather a continuation that will incorporate the events of the original TV series and the McG-directed 2000s films.