The Movies

1 Charlie's Angels

$40.5 million 1 week in release $40.5 million to date

PLOT A new generation of crime fighters grapples with a kidnapped millionaire.

MESSAGE Women can do anything that men can do, including fight bad guys.

CAUTION Rated PG-13 for action violence, innuendo, and sensuality.

$13.1 million 5 weeks in release $116.9 million to date

PLOT A suitor spends a nightmarish weekend trying to win over his future bride's father.

MESSAGE Winning the girl's father is harder than winning the girl.

CAUTION Rated PG-13 for sexual content, drug references, and bad language.

$12 million 1 week in release $12 million to date

PLOT Golf epic about a black caddy involved in a high-stakes tournament in 1930s Georgia.

MESSAGE Based on Hinduism's Bhagavad Gita, golf becomes a metaphor for life.

CAUTION Rated PG-13 for some sexual content.

$7 million 6 weeks in release $96.8 million to date

PLOT A black coach takes over the football team at a recently integrated high school.

MESSAGE Racial strife can be overcome when people work for a common purpose.

CAUTION Rated PG for thematic elements and some bad language.

$5.3 million 2 weeks in release $22.1 million to date

PLOT Another group trudges through the haunted woods looking for its secrets.

MESSAGE Fatalism. You can't run from your inevitable doom.

CAUTION Rated R for violence, bad language, sexuality, and drug use.

Who says you can't go back to the 1970s? Charlie's Angels was pulled out of mothballs for a big-screen update (rated PG-13 for action violence, innuendo, and sensuality). This new crew of Barbie-esque crime fighters doesn't even bother taking itself seriously. Only the shell of the original series is kept, while the rest is today's escapism. Drew Barrymore, Cameron Diaz, and Lucy Liu play the new generation in a movie that's half parody and half Mission Impossible 2. There's a story in here about a kidnapped telecom millionaire (Sam Rockwell), but this movie couldn't care less about plot or continuity. Charlie's Angels are now more politically correct, in that Charlie calls them "women" instead of "little girls." The trio now uses martial arts to fight the bad guys since they don't carry guns, acting like a grownup version of the Powerpuff Girls. Directed by a music video veteran who calls himself "McG," Charlie's Angels is really aimed at people too young to remember Kate Jackson or Jaclyn Smith. Have action movies hit such a rut that people will only watch them with tongue in cheek?