Intermission: TV remake film offers good, dumb fun

"Charlie's Angels"

Directed by: "McG"

Starring: Drew Barrymore, Cameron Diaz, Lucy Liu, Bill Murray

Rated: PG-13

In 1982, 6-year-old Drew Barrymore captured America's heart as Gertie, the kid sister in Spielberg's blockbuster hit "E.T." By her teens, America's sweetheart had fallen prey to a family curse, much the same as the one that has plagued the Hemingways. Family legends and the emotional baggage that comes with them, along with a domineering stage mother, is just too much for a kid to handle. Before she was out of middle school, Barrymore was drinking and drugging with the best (I should say worst) of the Hollywood party crowd. Her career suffered greatly and she was on the Hollywood "Z" list of actresses for quite a while.

Happily, Barrymore overcame her dependencies and a few directors were willing to give her a shot, leading to one of the most hard-won comebacks in movie history. Now, Barrymore hasn't just proven herself as a talented actress but she has an ambitious production company.

Barrymore's latest release as producer/star is yet another movie version of a classic TV show, this time "Charlie's Angels." Barrymore has made a lot of savvy choices here as a producer, most importantly choosing a smart and sexy cast while also refusing to let the film take its subject matter all that seriously. "Charlie's Angels" is in-your-face cleavage coupled with tongue-in-cheek humor. The sex here is pure cheesecake, the violence cartoonlike, the plot negligible and the action state-of-the-art. I have to admit, I was never a fan of the TV show but this film will go down as one of my guilty pleasures of 2000. Barrymore is sexy and sassy, Lucy Liu is sexy and brainy and Cameron Diaz, in another role that highlights not only her obvious physical talents but her chops as a comedic actress as well, is the epitome of the "sexy dumb blonde" stereotype we've grown to love. She may be a bit ditzy (her character, that is) but she can karate-chop and kickbox with the best of them.

"Once upon a time, there were three beautiful girls ..." So begins the latest chapter in the Angels' saga. Charlie is the secretive owner of a high-tech private investigation firm and his main operatives are his three Angels: Dylan (Barrymore), Alex (Liu) and Natalie (Diaz). As in the TV series, the go-between for Charlie and his Angels is a guy named Bosley, played by Bill Murray with his usual irreverent goofiness.

After a slam-bang opening and a brief introduction of the characters, the Angels are summoned for their latest assignment. A Bill Gates-type character named Eric Knox has been kidnapped. The prime suspect is another high-tech mogul, Roger Corwin, played by Tim Curry.

The Angels make quick work of finding Knox, but phase two of the operation kicks in wherein the gals must also locate some cutting-edge software that was taken when Knox was kidnapped. Speculation is that Corwin will couple this technology with his own global satellite positioning and cell phone operation and somehow achieve world domination, the goal of innumerable silver screen evil geniuses.

Curry is good as the devilish Corwin and who better to play a psychopathic killer than Crispin Glover who, while not known to have murdered anyone, fills at least half of the typecasting of the role.

No surprises here, but the action is good, the babes are state-of-the-art and Barrymore's senses as a producer are getting better all the time. You don't have to admit it, but chances are you'll find "Charlie's Angels" to be all around good, dumb fun.

(Jim Wunderle works at Associated Video Producers and is a Springfield free-lance writer and musician.)