We love a good retro movie around here, but it can be tough finding one that everyone wants to watch. Some of our friends like movies with plenty of action, and others like movies with daring spy missions. And some…well…they just want to watch very sexy ladies kicking butt and taking names.
Would you believe there is one movie that meets all these criteria and then some? Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle is a true blast from the past. This sequel takes everything great about the original and takes it up a few notches. And if you’re on the fence about watching this movie, just check out this roundup of its craziest scenes!
Meeting a sexy legend
Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle has one unforgettable scene where Natalie Cook (Cameron Diaz) meets Madison Lee (Demi Moore). It turns out that Lee is a former Angel herself, and we get a quick breakdown of her greatest accomplishments, all of which are fantastically over-the-top. For example, as Alex Munday (Lucy Liu) and Dylan Sanders (Drew Barrymore) watch the meet-up from further away, they discuss how Lee has “won the Nobel Prize for her research on flying mammals” and “predicted Carmine DeSoto’s every move…by using the Cosmo Bedside Astrologer.”
While her resume is impressive, it’s not Lee’s accomplishments that make this scene so memorable. What most fans remember is how this scene leaned into Demi Moore’s sexiness (just check out that bikini!) and her killer chemistry with Diaz. When she leans forward to tell the younger Angel that “I also set the clock on Charlie’s VCR” in a husky voice, it looks for all the world like the two women are about to kiss.
That alone makes this a wild scene, and it’s that much wilder when (spoilers, sweetie!) we find out that she’s actually a bad guy!
Motorcycle mayhem
Part of what makes Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle so fun is that the movie’s sexy leading ladies keep landing themselves in crazy situations. For example, the movie has an unforgettable scene where the Angels are all on dirt bikes chasing down a bike-riding baddie. Early on, the scene gets your heart racing by showing the bikes catching some serious air as the gals close in on their target.
Eventually, their would-be prey decides to whip out some guns, and that’s when everything goes crazy. He’s armed and they aren’t, so while he starts firing his gun (while upside down and in slow-motion, no less), the Angels must contort their bodies and bikes in order to avoid the bullets. Natalie’s bike actually explodes, and even though she survives, it looks like their enemy will escape…until a black-clad, hair-pulling creep shows up on his own bike, kicking the Angels’ foe off his bike and effectively saving the day.
Trust me: after he snatches Cameron Diaz’s hair and then crashes his own bike into a fiery explosion, you’ll never stop processing just how delightfully weird this scene is!
The sexiest spies
Even more so than the original film, Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle is never afraid to lean into the sexiness of its main characters. That is never more clear than in the scene where the Angels must infiltrate a group of erotic dancers in order to find the man they’re looking for. You see, their target is somewhere in the audience, and he has a keycard they need to complete their mission. The Angels’ job, then, is to find the man, locate the key, and steal it without him ever knowing he was robbed.
To do this, they engage in a striptease scene filled with titillating moments. For example, Lucy Liu’s character shows off her whip skills, using the whip to knock off Cameron Diaz’s clothes to the delight of the men in the room. She also uses it to reveal the card on their target, prompting Drew Barrymore’s character to steal it from their target while giving him a lap dance. As sexy as this scene is, it never takes things too seriously, as evidenced by the cartoon sound effects when the Angels whip off their hats and throw them into an enthusiastic crowd.
Chains and fists and feet (oh my!)
Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle is a movie that draws much inspiration from the Matrix movies. You see, while the Angels are great spies (just check out that crazy striptease scene!), their missions sometimes go sideways, and all they can do is fight their way out. And in the best way possible, these fights usually embrace the over-the-top kung fu and occasional slow-mo that helped make the Matrix such a pop culture phenomenon.
One of the best examples of this is a warehouse fight scene where our Angels have to square off against a small army of goons. Even though they are outnumbered, our girls dispatch their foes with style. They don’t just punch and kick; they also swing on chains, get into swordfights, and ultimately make their escape by group kicking their way through the ceiling.
Talk about an unforgettable fight!
The final showdown
Eventually, Demi Moore’s character is revealed to be the big bad of Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle. She was once an Angel, but now that she has betrayed her old team, it’s up to the newest Angels to take her down. That happens in a climactic showdown scene where the older woman is rocking some golden guns and giving supervillain speeches, both of which reminded us of some classic James Bond movies.
In fact, the villain boasts that what separates her time as an Angel from theirs is that “back then, we used guns.” She proceeds to shoot our heroes off a roof, and she ominously peers down at their apparently dead bodies. As you might have guessed, our heroes are still alive, but this was a real heart-stopping moment for those watching the film for the first time. Like, can you imagine if this feel-good action movie actually ended with the bad guy shooting our heroes down and walking away?
Thanks to crazy scenes like this, we’ll never forget Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle.