Charlie's Angels (2000 film)

Charlie's Angels is a 2000 American action-comedy film based on the television series of the same name created by Ivan Goff and Ben Roberts. Unlike the original series, which had dramatic elements, the film features more comical elements, and was directed by McG, adapted by screenwriters Ryan Rowe, Ed Solomon, and John August. 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.

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. They are too late from stopping Knox from determining Charlie's location, but they rescue Bosley and 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, but doesn't tell the group.

Cast

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

Box office
Charlie's Angels grossed $125.3 million domestically and $148.8 million in other territories, for a worldwide gross of $264.1 million, becoming the 12th highest-grossing of 2000. Against a budget of $93 million, the film was a box office success.

North America
Domestically, the film opened in 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.

Critical reception
Charlie's Angels received generally positive reviews from critics, some action scenes, the humor of the film and the performances of Diaz and Murray were highly praised. On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has a 68% "Fresh" rating based on 142 reviews. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from film critics, it has a rating score of 52, indicating "mixed or average reviews".

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.[2]"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."[2]

Home media
Charlie's Angels was released on both VHS and DVD on March 27, 2001. This movie is the first of the history to be released on Blu-Ray Disc in 2005.[citation needed]

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.[3]

Track listing
A girl like you before by Edwyn Collins
 * Other songs are not included in the soundtrack
 * "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" by Pizzicato Five
 * "Sukiyaki" by Kyu Sakamoto
 * "Zendeko Hachijo" by Zenshuji Zendeko
 * "Smack My Bitch Up" by The Prodigy
 * "Another Town" by Transister
 * "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
 * "All the Small Things" by Blink-182

Sequel
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 Garrettfrom the original television series.