What else needs to be said about the solid failure that was the attempted reboot of Charlie’s Angels?
Is Anyone Ready To Admit It Just Sucked Yet?
Well, what’s an admission besides someone’s dismissable opinion?
Facts are facts, so let’s check the metrics, shall we?
Judging by its box office performance – $17 million domestic – and Rotten Tomatoes score – 52% – and IMDB’s 4/10 stars, I think saying it sucked is adequate.
Maybe It Was Just Misunderstood
Maybe. Or maybe just mis-advertised.
Charlie’s Angels 2019 is the latest in a crop of clumsily over-feminized reboots that have not lived up to either hype or expectations, so it’s surprising no one is calling this gimmick out for exactly what it is; a gimmick.
Let’s face it; it’s not about the studio’s being woke, it’s not about women filmmakers finally getting a chance to share their voice, it’s all about advertising.
How do you help sell a limp movie? By trying to make it about more than it just being a movie.
Make it a statement, make it a movement, and most of all make anyone who doesn’t blindly support it a target of name-calling.
Advertising Failure?
Besides a few bit players, Kristen Stewart is the only familiar name to me in 2019’s version.
Being no stranger to starring in disappointments — The Runaways, American Ultra — if not downright flops — Equals, Cafe Society — you’d think she’d have practiced at least a little defense for her latest whiff.
Take it away, K-Stew:
“Well, to be honest with you, I think if I had made a movie that wasn’t good and one that I wasn’t proud of and a lot of people saw it, I would be devastated…Luckily I’m not feeling gutted because I really am proud of the movie. And I think that the kind of climate that we’re living in right now is polarizing and it’s weird and it’s kind of hard to promote a movie like that. And I think trying to have a really complicated, overly politicized feminist conversation in a five minute TV interview about ‘Charlie’s Angels’…I’m like, ‘Dude, we just wanted to have a good time.'”
There’s a lot to take from that quote so I’ll start at the end and work my way back.
I’m not sure if Sony Pictures is very cool with the notion that their $50 million investment was all about ‘having a good time’ for Stewart, who they used heavily to promote this.
She’s been acting since she was a child, early roles included starring opposite Jodi Foster in Panic Room, so she should at least understand that making movies is a business and if you aren’t good for that business you don’t keep working. Right?
Standard gibberish about a ‘polarizing climate’ and ‘politicized feminist conversation’ does touch on valid and interesting subjects, but this is a piece of entertainment.
Also by now, she should be able to recognize what hasn’t been working in her career because it’s been going on for a while. So maybe she needs a better agent or a literate script reader, or maybe just to give a shit. Her being ‘really proud of the movie’ and ‘not feeling gutted’ is a case of too little too late.
I’m glad your dignity has been spared, maybe being shameless does have its advantages.
And yet she works on… and on… and on.
Back me up here, director & costar Elizabeth Banks:
“I think it really speaks to women about how we should be conducting ourselves.”
Thank you E-B.
People don’t want to be preached to about why they should like something.
Movie buffs out there know what I’m saying. How many eyes gloss over when you start talking even slightly in-depth about your thoughts on a particular movie or star?
People want to be entertained and Kristen Stewart either doesn’t really care about that or really thinks she’s not part of the problem, but I guess that’s everyone these days?
It’s not the billion-dollar advertising industry that’s wrong. It’s you, the audience member.
Sound like propaganda much?
Does to me.
The question is; what are you going to do about it?
