Odd things occasionally happen to foreign movies when they reach the west - the original
Godzilla had thirty minutes of wholly superfluous Raymond Burr edited into it, for
example - so it's hardly surprising that strange fates sometimes befall English language
cinema when it ventures abroad. Most commonly these take the form of eccentric re-titling:

in
Hong Kong, A View to a Kill was renamed The Indestructible Iron Man Fights The
Electronic Gang, and the Lancaster/Douglas comedy Tough Guys got the less
succinct moniker Archie And Harry, They're Too Old To Do It Anymore. But the
most famous of these occurrences is the South Korean version of The Sound of Music,


which the distributor decided was far too long and, in a stroke of genius, shortened to a more


acceptable length by cutting out every last one of the songs.

I've never seen this promising-sounding edit but I was reminded of what it might be like
while recently watching Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle, which resembles nothing so
much as an hour and three quarters of MTV with all the actual music excised. And most of the


plot, too, now I think of it. Like its predecessor, this is un film de McG.

This kind of misappropriation of the possessive credit is usually one of those things I get
oddly irritated by but in this case it seems very nearly justified as without McG's
frenetically glossy direction there wouldn't actually be a film to review. The plot is
gossamer-thin gibberish, kicking off with Cameron Diaz riding a mechanical bull in a
Mongolian bar and concluding with Demi Moore swooping through the streets of Los Angeles
in a bat-winged frock, rather like the Wicked Witch of the West. In between there's a lot
of to do about some rings with secret info on them (McG probably stands for McGuffin), not


that it matters much or makes any kind of sense.

What this film is all about is outrageously flashy camerawork and editing, and

manoeuvring
our three fully emancipated heroines into as many different improbable disguises and
situations as possible - vets, wrestlers, nuns, lap dancers (this bit isn't dwelt upon nearly
enough, if you ask me), motocross racers, car-wash attendants, rodeo riders, and surfers, to
name but most of them - before forcing them to engage in fight sequences from the Gerry
Anderson school of kung fu. Even then the movie is utterly shameless in going off on wild
tangents to incorporate a wide range of guest stars - Luke Wilson, Carrie Fisher,
surly popstrel Pink, Matt LeBlanc, Bruce Willis, the Olsen twins - or engage in sledgehammer
satire of other action movies, or even just grind to a halt for a dance routine paying homage
to MC 'Reverend' Hammer. John Cleese plays Lucy Liu's father, and Bernie Mac plays Bill
Murray's brother: that's the level of credibility we're operating on here.

Personally I found it all rather enjoyable: this is a film with no pretensions to depth or

art
whatsoever, but everyone involved is clearly giving of their best. McG's hyperactive
direction has no truck with things like sense or credibility, just as his action sequences ignore


trifling concerns like logic or the laws of physics: one startling shot has the three butt-naked


Angels erupting out of a marble frieze within which they have somehow secreted themselves,
only - seconds later - to have found themselves sturdy yet stylish T-shirts and jeans, ready
for the next bout of ass-whuppery. Bullet-time, slo-mo, impossible zooms, ridiculous

wirework
- yup, they're all here and the film rather profits from trading style for substance.

Of the leads, Producer Angel Drew Barrymore appears to have pulled rank and secured
for herself virtually all the serious dramatic material that the film possesses, while Blonde
Angel Cameron Diaz once again displays a hugely impressive talent for self-mocking ditzy
slapstick. Quite what Ethnic Diversity Angel Lucy Liu brings to the mix, I'm not certain: her
role is rather akin to that of Emile Heskey in recent England sides, in that it's not really
clear what she's doing, but one is certain it's in some way fundamental to the whole success

of
the undertaking. She does get the film's funniest scene, breathlessly recounting her latest
escapade to an appalled Cleese, who - understandably - is under the misapprehension his
daughter is a high-class call girl.

Most of the guest stars acquit themselves fairly well - Justin Theroux's terrible
Oirish accent notwithstanding - but a few words about one in particular seem justified. Ever
since her mid-90s heyday I've followed the career of Demi Moore with a kind of appalled
fascination. Her movies have been one creative train-wreck after another, yet she has always


emerged with her profile and salary somehow boosted. Her relentless pursuit of stardom,
powered only by sheer willpower and the efforts of her personal trainer, inevitably elicits
my horrified respect. Here she turns in another performance carved of the finest Formica,
but she does get a kung fu fight with Diaz, and if you're not going to go to the cinema to see
that, what are you going to go and see? You will probably be pleased to hear that the
'Demi, if it was artistically justified, would you consider keeping your clothes on in a
movie?' joke is still not past its use-by date.

Full Throttle really turned out to be pretty much what I was expecting it to be - a


bizarre amalgam of Carry On film, live-action Bugs Bunny cartoon, and hair-care
products commercial. The cinematic equivalent of drinking a crate of Bacardi breezers and
then pummelling yourself into a coma with a glittery handbag: it may seem like fun at the
time, but in the long term it surely can't be healthy.

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