GamesRadar+ Verdict
Often over-burdened and under-powered, Banks’ revival rarely takes wing. But game leads (K-Stew, notably) and some lively set-pieces lighten its tread.
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In a grim year for franchise revivals, Elizabeth Banks’ entry bites off more than it can chew in a bid to rise above the crop. Even if Banks’ second directing gig is far from the disaster its US takings suggest, the revivifying focus required for a low-interest IP reboot often goes AWOL.
Swerving between action-comedy routines, spy moves and of-the-moment messages, Charlie’s Angels ’19 only occasionally connects keenly enough with its many ambitions to land the desired in-the-moment impact: as for a lasting impressions, go figure.
When it does work, the leads and a string of sparky set-pieces provide saving graces. Back in franchise-land after the arthouse gap-years, Kristen Stewart injects off-kilter personality into often perfunctory dialogue as loose-cannon agent Sabina. Ella Balinska brings persuasive punch to fellow operative Jane, who joins Sabina – without much chemistry - to protect not-an-agent-yet Elena (Aladdin’s Naomi Scott, having fun between car-sickness eruptions), a tech whizz with info on a potentially lethal energy source.
The mission to keep this MacGuffin from enemy hands sends the plot sprawling between global hotspots, with stop-offs for a few tweaks of Angels lore (‘Bosley’ becomes a rank), some takedowns of workplace misogyny and the odd tumbleweed-moment quip. Several of the jokes flop harder than the obnoxious guy who receives a forearm thwack. But the slamming car chase, crisp heist sequence and quarry ruckus offer brisk compensations, let down only by choppy editing in the fight scenes.
