Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle (2003)

The first flick was a genuine surprise -- a lunatic kitchen-sink action-jiggle fest with an extraordinarily weird sense of humor. Distended and slapped together haphazardly, it shouldn't have worked but it did magnificently. The sequel, then, must represent what could have been. It's a chaotic, senseless fiasco that Xerox-copys everything that worked in the first film and gives it a second go. (I already saw the first film, thanks; I didn't need to pay to see it again.) At times, the film is so bloated and overextended in an attempt to recapture that lightning-in-a-bottle kick that it tears at the seams and hardly seems to exist at all. Disposable pop entertainment is one thing, but this is like ordering a hamburger and getting wax fruit. Bill Murray is sorely missed; Justin Theroux, so good in Mulholland Drive, turns in the kind of performance that could kill a career. Even the Thin Man gets neutered here. So it's the worst kind of sequel -- a lazy ripoff made simply because someone saw money to be made. What a fucking waste. (Oh, yeah -- if you do end up seeing it, hope ya like 'angel' puns.)

Grade: D+