Charlie’s Angels

Surely no one expected—or even wanted—the movie version of the schlock ‘70s TV series to be any good. Director McG (a snazzy shorthand for one Joseph McGinty Mitchell) makes a clumsy, chaotic mess of this, his first movie—the story doesn’t make sense, the jokes are stale, the action sequences are badly staged, Russell Carpenter’s cinematography is tinny and cheap-looking and stars Cameron Diaz, Drew Barrymore and Lucy Liu are almost criminally mishandled, given little to do besides pertly jiggle their breasts and booties between computer-generated action sequences that big-ticket adventure movies are obligated to provide. There’s no style and precious little entertainment value, except to those so grimly determined to be entertained that they will swallow any insult to their intelligence.