Charlie's Angels (2000)

When the creator of a top-secret voice-identification software is kidnapped, the angels are called in to seek out the suspects, the prime one being the mysterious and wealthy Roger Corwin who could use it on his extensive satellite network to trace and track any person in the world.

However, when the programmer is found and released from his kidnappers the team realise that their mission was a little to easy to complete. Thinking that their client is still in danger they decide to keep a close eye on him and continue their investigations into Roger Corwin. When their go between Bosley is kidnapped they soon realise that it is Charlie who is the real one in danger.

The picture is excellent with an above average bit-rate throughout the film. The colours and rich and vibrant with plenty of details to highlight those luscious curves of Natalie, Dylan and Alex and there's no signs of artifacting or picture noise. Although there's no outlining I did spot a few occasions where the green screen special effects looked a bit too obvious with the consequence of some minor outlining.

Again the sound is good with some excellent use the surround channels. The dialogue is wonderfully clear in the centre channel and there's some superb sound steerage. However, for all of the action I thought that there was a definite lack of LFE's, so much so that I had to double check to make sure I'd turned my subwoofer on.

The animated menus are impressive and seamless launch each submenu, and indeed the film. The extras are also superb with an amazing number of featurettes ranging from describing the costumes to the martial art techniques employed in the film. There's even a bizarre outtakes section which is just a rehash of the closing credit. To round things off Destiny's Child croon out their hit record with their sexy music video.

From the moment the film starts you know that you are in for an all action cheese packed ride, and phew, what a ride it is. Ok, yet again Hollywood have delivered a film with a mind numbing plot but you needn't bother yourself with these minor complications. Just sit back and watch the ladies kick some butt with plenty of influence from a certain film call The Matrix. There's even an appearance by Joey from Friends, sorry I mean Matt LeBlanc. He even plays a bumbling actor trying to make it big. Is this guy typecast or what!?

After all of the hype and mixed reviews I decided to skip a cinema outing. What a mistake to make, this film is actually rather good. However, don't companies bolster the extras on substandard films to make them more interesting? Perhaps I'm just being cynical. After all it is a Columbia Tri-Star DVD!