I watched this movie this weekend with my wife and her parents. (Note to others: gratuitous T&A, no matter how blatant and amusing, is never something you want to watch with your significant other.) It was the only movie we could all agree we were interested in seeing.
Ye gods, what a waste of time and money.
The special F/X and martial arts scenes looked cool, I'll give them that. And the boob and butt shots probably would have been more titillating if I were still an adolescent. But outside of that... no redeeming features. None. And I looked hard.
This movie couldn't decide if it wanted to be comedy, action, mystery, or just plain eye candy. But that wasn't it. The villains and their motivations were all straight out of a bargain-bin comic book. But that wasn't it. The plot kept jumping between the actual story to meaningless and unintegrated scenes involving the Angels' assorted boyfriends, who weren't even interesting enough to provide real comic relief. But that wasn't it. The whole story rather hinged on the viewer having some idea of what the original TV series was like. But that, too, wasn't it.
No, it was the fact that there was not a single believable detail in this script. Not one. Anywhere. From beginning to end -- from the first scene where a guy's sitting in first class on an airliner with a bomb strapped to his chest that somehow made it past the metal detectors, to nearly the last where Lucy Liu's character was checking out the manual control pad inside a heat-seeking missile -- realism, believability, and plausability were all thrown completely out the window for this script.
Mainframe computers locked up in vaults with absurdly sophisticated security systems tighter than Fort Knox, and apparently not networked to anything. Bad guys with kung fu skills to rival Jackie Chan and who obviously are incapable of feeling pain. GPS satellites that can apparently trace a cell phone signal in addition to their normal responsibilities. 747s where the emergency exits open as easily as a patio door. Millionaire masterminds who can track the identity of a former U.S. Army intelligence agent from twenty years ago, but still can't figure out where he lives. Formula 1 race cars that play "chicken" on a suspension bridge with no other traffic in sight. The list goes on and on. The average Joe would have to suspend their disbelief to the point of doubting the law of gravity in order to swallow this movie. A nitpicker like myself will feel his brain still hurting for days after.
It truly boggles the mind. This could have been a kick-butt movie if they'd bothered to put together a coherent and even slightly logical story behind it, instead of trying to cover up its lack thereof with as much retro 70s music, stylish cinematography, and exposed skin as they could think of. As it is, it's just as flash-in-the-pan as the retro fashion trend it's based on.