The fact that the new Charlie’s Angels is a cash grab attempting to take advantage of a familiar name and concept is a given. The test of the show and the young actresses that populate it is whether they can make us forget that their enterprise has no true artistic goal but merely a commercial one.
Sadly, the new Charlie’s Angels is a complete failure in this regard. Never for a moment does this sloppy, candy coated nostalgia project convince us that it has any type of conviction beyond helping advertisers lift money from our wallets. You could say that that is the case with every show on TV but some of those shows at least make their commercial goals with your time investment.
Charlie’s Angels begins with one of the Angels being killed. Former My Name is Earl actress Nadine Velasquez is the doomed angel, Gloria, while Rachael Taylor and Annie Ilzoneh play Abby, an heiress turned thief, and Kate, a formerly corrupt cop. Now, attention turns to solving Gloria’s murder.
Joining the Angels in this case is their first suspect, a former car thief and friend of Gloria’s, Eve (Minka Kelly). Gloria and Eve grew up together and Eve was seen fleeing just after Gloria’s death. Once Eve is proven innocent, the Angels find a new suspect, former 24 star Carlos Bernard, who just happens to be connected to the kidnapping case and to Gloria and Eve’s past in South America. What luck right?
Charlie’s Angels was never supposed to be rocket science, granted, but the utter foolishness of the storytelling, dialogue and acting in the pilot goes beyond what I was able to forgive. Rachael Taylor, Annie Ilonzeh and Minka Kelly are each uniquely beautiful women and Taylor and Kelly have proven to be assets on other series, but here they are unable to overcome one truly abysmal script.
If your aim is merely ogling Minka Kelly or Rachael Taylor, you’re better off buying a copy of Maxim than wasting an hour on Charlie’s Angels.