Charlie's Angels Blu-ray Review

On Region Free UK Blu-ray Charlie’s Angels comes with a blisteringly bright 1080p High Definition rendition in the movie’s original theatrical aspect ratio of widescreen 2.4:1. McG’s vision is certainly a vivid, gaudy one, which may have you straining over the exaggeratedly vibrant colour scheme, but the Blu-ray presentation handles this material remarkably well. The detail is also maintained for the most part, largely devoid of defects or digital issues like edge enhancement, even if you can spot a little DNR, and a smattering of softness in the totally grain-less proceedings. This is flash over-stylisation taken to the max, and – to be honest – High Definition isn’t all that respectful towards ten-year-old effects, which frankly stand out quite painfully, despite the production’s comic-book-style nature. Still, even if you’ll never use it to show off your High Def equipment, you can’t really complain about the presentation here – it really offers up the best from the excessive visuals.

On the aural front, the soundtrack easily matches the boisterous, over-the-top visuals, a veritable jukebox-full of pumping, in-your-face tracks – from Prodigy’s Smack My Bitch Up to Korn, to Apollo 440’s revamping of the original theme tune – and the mix pounds away at you almost throughout the relatively short (thankfully?) proceedings. Of course the track itself does not actually offer up very much subtlety, depth, or dynamic range (there are a few neat whizzing bullets), instead largely adopting the heavy-handed approach of music track saturation to drown out everything else. This means your ears are catered for, but at the noisy end of the spectrum, with plenty of bass and bombast, but absolutely no precision. It’s a fistful of beats that you have here – arguably totally in line with the proceedings, and perfect for the production, but still far from what you would use to show off your surround sound system.

In terms of Extras, you can either view this disc in a glass half-full or half-empty kind of way. On the plus side we get our fair quota of extra material: a full-length Audio Commentary with the Director McG, who talks enthusiastically with his cinematographer about the difficulties in making a relatively limited budget blockbuster-looking movie; five short Featurettes (Getting G’d Up looks at the cast’s relationship with the Director, with plenty of subsequent mutual appreciation; Welcome to Angel World sets the over-the-top tone for the piece; Angelic Attire looks at the trio’s fantastic outfits; The Master and the Angels looks at the martial arts choreography for the film – which was utterly unnecessary given the wire-work used; and Wired Angels shows you just how many wires were used to make one single shot in this film come alive); Three pretty average Deleted Scenes (although we do get some more Bill Murray) that can be glimpsed in the end credits bloopers anyway; Outtakes and Bloopers; two Music Videos (Destiny’s Child’s Independent Woman and Apollo 440’s rehash of the main theme) and a bunch of Trailers.

Phew. So what’s the downside? Well, there is nothing here that wasn’t on the US Blu-ray counterpart. Doesn’t sound like much of a negative? Ok, well how about this: the extras are also identical to the original SD-DVD release. We really are getting nothing new, even after all these years. Still, I suppose we should be grateful that at least all the extras were ported over for this BD release.
Charlie’s Angels is vapid nonsense, a plot-less, over-the-top exercise in silly action and Matrix-lite martial arts that is really little more than an excuse to have three stunning actresses strutting around the screen in a succession of equally gorgeous outfits. Beyond this, the film is marginally saved by the fact that it blatantly is not taking itself seriously – at all – and by the inherent fun that the cast are clearly having doing it. Fun which contagiously suckers you in, and will more than likely keep you entertained for the thankfully short duration. Rewatch value? Zero. (Although there is that part with Cameron Diaz's ass...) On UK Region Free Blu-ray we get decent enough video and audio, and all of the extras ported over from the original SD-DVD release, but there’s isn’t a huge reason to upgrade unless you really, really love this film. It’s harmless, brainless, throwaway Saturday afternoon fun and should probably be treated as such.