Charlie’s Angels review: A more daring film lurks beneath the surface of this toothless sequel

Writer-director Elizabeth Banks seems torn between two entirely different films

Dir: Elizabeth Banks. Cast: Kristen Stewart, Naomi Scott, Ella Balinska, Elizabeth Banks, Djimon Hounsou, Sam Claflin. 12A cert, 118 mins

Was there any point in making another Charlie’s Angels film? The franchise’s entire cultural legacy extends to a cutesy photo pose and a shout-out in a Destiny’s Child track.

What began life as an airhead TV show about spy babes who kicked butt and looked cute for the boys became a film series that did the same thing – except with a wink to the camera and a dash of post-modern feminism. The Charlie’s Angels of 2019, however, tries earnestly to bring these ladies into the 21st century. And it might have worked, if the film didn’t so consistently pull its punches.

Writer-director Elizabeth Banks (also behind the box office hit Pitch Perfect 2) seems torn between two entirely different films: one that’s an update of what we’ve seen before, and one that flips it entirely on its head.

The new Angels (Kristen Stewart, Aladdin’s Naomi Scott and newcomer Ella Balinska) jet off to various international locales – all shot with the empty glamour of a Pitbull music video. Their mission is ludicrous but vaguely dialled into today’s talking points. Scott’s Elena, in fact, isn’t an Angel at all. She’s the creator of Calisto, a new form of renewable energy that she realises (to her horror) can also be manipulated into the perfect murder machine.

Unsurprisingly, her employers try to railroad the project, she becomes a whistleblower, and the Angels swoop in to provide her protection. Here, Charlie’s still an anonymous voice over an intercom, but there are different versions of Bosley all over the world, one played by Banks, another by Djimon Hounsou, a third by Patrick Stewart.

The mindless silliness of it all might have worked if the film had fully leaned into it. Charlie’s Angels has its moments (including a pouting, cool-girl dance sequence set to Donna Summer’s “Bad Girls”), but it’s never camp or self-indulgent enough to match the sight of Cate Blanchett strutting out in a full-sequined jumpsuit in last year’s Ocean’s 8. That film revelled in the superficial pleasure of well-dressed, famous women coming together to hoodwink the patriarchy.

Yet Banks has always had a subversive streak to her comedy, from her weirdo beginnings in Wet Hot American Summer to her maniacal Effie Trinket in The Hunger Games. That side of her rears its head every now and again here; there is a far more daring, inventive film hiding just beneath the surface.

From left: Ella Balinska, Kristen Stewart and Naomi Scott (AP)

It’s most obvious in the casting of Stewart, who makes a rare return to big-budget filmmaking after years of delivering raw, magnetic performances on the indie circuit. Here, playing Sabina, she’s as watchable as ever – confident, but fidgety and erratic. She’s treated as a mild annoyance by Balinska’s Jane, a former MI6 officer who’s all about lethal moves and zero vulnerability.

Sabina gets many of the film’s smarter, darker lines. The Angels repeatedly shrug off the amount of collateral damage they leave behind, while there are some surprisingly gruesome deaths along the way. But the humour, on the whole, is largely toothless. It’s never quite outrageous or weird enough to get the laughs – the exception being Sam Claflin’s witless tech bro, whose strangled cries of defeat might be the film’s unexpected highlight.

But Banks is at least smart when it comes to representing who the modern Angels should be. The film repeatedly states what’s already obvious on-screen – Sabina’s declaration that “women can do anything” is a little eye-rollingly redundant – but there are subtler touches, too. Elena’s boss talks over her, while the Angels themselves are guilty of making the wrong assumptions about other women.

Weaponised sexuality is now a tool to turn the tables on those who underestimate the agency of women. Banks has provided the blueprint for how the 21st-century Charlie’s Angels should move through the world. If only the rest of the film could commit in the same way.