by MATTHEW HAYS

A funny thing happened half way through the avant-premiere of Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle, the sequel to the hugely successful riff on the iconic ’70s detective series.

I actually found myself enjoying it. And I certainly wasn’t expecting to. The first film seemed a floundering mess of misguided humour, overblown special effects, bad timing and pacing and far-too-prone-tomugging performances. But this time around, the Angels (Drew Barrymore, Lucy Liu and Cameron Diaz) actually have a somewhat intriguing nemesis (Demi Moore as a wayward lesbian "fallen angel") and the stupid attempts at humour are kept to a merciful minimum.

Recently, India’s commercial movie industry has been criticized for its ripping off of Hollywood. But here, Barrymore (who’s reportedly the driving force behind this franchise) has created what may well be the first Bollywood Hollywood epic. The Charlie’s Angels movies are a frenetic masala of everything including the kitchen sink: like Bollywood films, they incorporate elements of action, romance, mystery, comedy, buddy movies and, of course, obligatory musical numbers. The top-of-the-pops score runs throughout the film (get the soundtrack, it’s sublime), while our angel protagonists go through a recordbreaking number of costume and set changes. Add to that the amount of ripping off - or cultural appropriation, rather - that the film commits (everything from Matrix to Cape Fear) and this feature feels even more perfectly Bollywood.

Don’t get me wrong: this movie is about as brainless as it gets. But as dumb summer fun goes, I confess, this sequel’s made a convert out of me. Bring it on!

Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle opens Friday, June 27

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