PLEASE NOTE: Michael D's is currently in READ ONLY MODE. Anything submitted will simply not be written to the database.
Lots of stuff is still broken, but at least reviews can now be looked up and read.
PLEASE NOTE: Michael D's is currently in READ ONLY MODE. Anything submitted will simply not be written to the database.
Lots of stuff is still broken, but at least reviews can now be looked up and read.
Charlie's Angels: Collector's Edition (2000)

Charlie's Angels: Collector's Edition (2000)

If you create a user account, you can add your own review of this DVD
Released 23-May-2001
Cover Art

This review is sponsored by

BUY IT

Details At A Glance

General		Extras
Category	Action	Main Menu Introduction Main Menu Audio & Animation Dolby Digital Trailer-City Audio Commentary-J McGinty Nichol (Dir) & R Carpenter (DoP) Featurette-Welcome To Angel World Featurette-Getting G'd Up Featurette-The Master and the Angels Featurette-Angelic Attire: Dressing Cameron, Drew and Lucy Featurette-Angelic Effects Featurette-Wired Angels Deleted Scenes-3 Outtakes Music Video-Independent Woman Part 1-Destiny's Child Music Video-Charlie's Angels 2000 - Apollo Four Forty Biographies-Cast & Crew Theatrical Trailer-2 Trailer-My Best Friend's Wedding, Vertical Limit Trailer-Almost Famous Easter Egg-3
Rating
Year Of Production	2000
Running Time	94:25
RSDL / Flipper	RSDL (77:33)	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu	Cast & Crew
Region Coding	2,4	Directed By	J McGinty Nichol
Studio Distributor	Sony Pictures Home Entertain	Starring	Cameron Diaz Drew Barrymore Lucy Liu Bill Murray Sam Rockwell Tim Curry Kelly Lynch Crispin Glover
Case	Brackley-Trans-No Lip	Starring
RPI	$36.95	Music	Edward Shearmur

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/s) Hungarian Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/s) English Audio Commentary Dolby Digital 2.0 (224Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	2.35:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	2.40:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No	Miscellaneous
Subtitles	English Dutch Arabic Bulgarian Czech Danish Finnish Greek Hebrew Hindi Hungarian Icelandic Norwegian Polish Swedish Turkish Dutch Audio Commentary	Smoking	Yes
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

NOTE: The Profanity Filter is ON. Turn it off here.

Plot Synopsis

After a quick fly through the Columbia Tristar clouds, we board a speeding jet where we find our first villain, who is going to blow up the plane unless his monetary demands are met. Queue the opening action sequence in which the villain is thrown out of the plane by Mr Jones (LL Cool J), narrowly missing its wings. Plummeting earthwards, the villain passes a hovering black helicopter which Angel #1, Alex (Lucy Liu), jumps out of. She catches up to the villain, removes the bomb from around his chest and safely lands with him in a waiting speed boat, which is being driven by Angel #2, Natalie (Cameron Diaz). Dylan (Drew Barrymore), Angel #3 also drops in for a visit.

Next, we get some very good insight into the backgrounds of our three Angels. This is well-presented, snappy and interesting, thus keeping the pace of the movie moving along nicely.

After some R&R, the Angels are back on the job again and gather at the Townsend building. Here we are introduced to Bosley (Bill Murray), and at precisely 9:00am Charlie calls to brief the team about their next assignment, which is to find out who is behind the kidnapping of Eric Knox (Sam Rockwell) and retrieve him and the voice recognition software that was stolen.

That's where I'm going to leave this little narration, so those who haven't seen this intentionally fun, fast-paced action movie can discover it the way it was meant to be discovered.

Don't wish to see plot synopses in the future? Change your configuration.

Transfer Quality

Video

The transfer is presented in an aspect ratio of 2.35:1 and is 16x9 enhanced.

Foreground detail varies from great to excellent and the background detail is very good. The picture is always sharp and clear, with great shadow detail. No low-level noise or edge bleeding was noticed. Unfortunately, some mild edge enhancement has been used which basically stops this transfer from receiving top marks.

The colour was exemplary. Beautifully saturated, rich and vibrant colours were the norm, just as the director wanted it to be.

There are a few scenes in the movie that suffer from some trivial grain and pixelization, but I wouldn't expect anyone actually watching the movie to notice them. Examples are at 0:10 - 0:20, 4:09, 14:00 and 59:02.

No MPEG artefacts, aliasing or moiré artefacts were noticed, which is really impressive considering the excellent sharpness of the picture. Another nice surprise is how smoothly the credits scroll up the screen at the end of the movie. I know this is not exactly the kind of thing that blows many people's minds, but it was nice to see perfectly stable writing, instead of the usual shimmering stuff.

I only noticed seven tiny film artefacts for the entire film, so as you can image this aspect of the transfer is pretty good.

This disc is an RSDL disc, with the layer change occurring between Chapters 25 and 26, at 77:33 on a scene change. It's placement is superb and would be undetectable if it was a little quicker. The music also changes at this point so it doesn't skip a beat either.

*Video Ratings Summary*
Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

There are two 448Kb/s Dolby Digital 5.1 audio tracks, English and Hungarian, on this DVD, plus a 224Kb/s Dolby Digital 2.0 surround-encoded audio commentary track, featuring the Director (McG) and the Cinematographer (Russell Carpenter). I listened to the default English soundtrack and then the audio commentary soundtrack.

The dialogue was extremely clear and easy to understand throughout the entire movie. The only exception to this was one of Drew Barrymore's lines in the outtakes at the end of the film, just before the credits, which hardly counts. At 37:55 there was a hint of distortion in Cameron Diaz's dialogue, but it is minor and inconsequential and was the only such occurrence for the entire film.

The audio sync was completely spot-on for the entire film.

Edward Shearmur's music score was up-beat and complemented the on-screen action.

The surround channels were aggressively used for ambience, music and special effects. The surround channel use in the opening sequence is just superb. There are many directional effects and the sound placement is great. This all adds up to make this a great sounding soundtrack that only just falls shy of being reference quality. Highlights are at 0:25 - 2:40, 23:50, 67:40 and 78:40 - 78:56.

The subwoofer was well used. It subtly adds bass to most scenes and is highly active during the more dramatic sequences.

*Audio Ratings Summary*
Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

Extras

There is a superb selection of extras, all of which are of very good quality or better. Note: The quality of any extra should be considered to be very good in the following descriptions, unless otherwise stated.

The main menu has a video clip made up of highlights from the movie set to theme music (192Kb/s Dolby Digital 2.0). The menus are 16x9 enhanced and there is additional animation when you choose an option from the main menu. The Main Menu selections are; Play Movie, Scene Selections (28), Extra Features, Language/Audio Set-up and Subtitles.

Dolby Digital Trailer - City

Audio Commentary-McG (Director) and Russell Carpenter (Director of Photography)

This commentary features the director and the director of photography in the centre channel speaking over the film's Dolby Digital 2.0 (224Kb/s) surround-encoded soundtrack. If you like to know how things were achieved and what when on during the filming of the movie (which I do), then this commentary is sure to please, as it is extremely informative and interesting in these areas.

Featurette - Welcome to Angel World (4:48 minutes)

Welcome to Angel World consists of interviews, movie footage and some behind-the-scenes footage. The interviews and the behind-the-scenes footage are presented in an aspect ratio of 1.33:1, while the movie footage is presented in the film's original aspect ratio of 2.35:1. This featurette is not 16x9 enhanced and has a 192Kb/s Dolby Digital 2.0 soundtrack. There is some minor grain, moiré and aliasing artefacts, plus some of the film footage is slightly over-bright, which washes out the colour a little, but even with all these minor faults the picture quality is still very good.

Featurette - Getting G'd Up (6:31 minutes)

Getting G'd Up consists of interviews and some behind-the-scenes footage. It is presented in an aspect ratio of 1.33:1, with a 192Kb/s Dolby Digital 2.0 soundtrack. There is some minor grain and aliasing.

Featurette - The Master and The Angels (7:25 minutes)

The Master and The Angels consists of interviews and a lot of behind-the-scenes footage, with some movie footage thrown in for good measure. It is presented in the non-16x9 enhanced aspect ratios of 1.33:1 and 2.35:1, with a 192Kb/s Dolby Digital 2.0 soundtrack. Some of the film footage is slightly over-bright, which washes out the colour a little.

Featurette - Angelic Attire: Dressing Cameron, Drew and Lucy (3:26 minutes)

I found the contents of this extra to be very interesting. It mostly consisted of interviews, with some movie footage. The interviews are presented at 1.33:1, while the movie footage is presented at 2.35:1. This featurette is not 16x9 enhanced and has a 192Kb/s Dolby Digital 2.0 soundtrack. Again, some of the film footage is slightly over-bright, which washes out the colour a little.

Featurette - Angelic Effects (6:44 minutes)

I also found the contents of this extra to be very interesting. It consists of interviews, behind-the-scenes footage and movie footage, presented in the non-16x9 enhanced aspect ratios of 1.33:1 and 2.35:1, with a 192Kb/s Dolby Digital 2.0 soundtrack. Some of the behind-the-scenes footage is grainy and some of the film footage is slightly over-bright, which washes out the colour a little.

Featurette - Wired Angels (2:33 minutes)

This featurette shows all the different shots that were required to make up the Chinese alley fight sequence. It is presented in the non-16x9 enhanced aspect ratios of 1.33:1 and 2.35:1, with a 192Kb/s Dolby Digital 2.0 soundtrack. Some of the final film footage is slightly over-bright, which washes out the colour a little.

Deleted and Extended Scenes (3)

Before each of the scenes McG talks about why the scene was cut or trimmed down. It is presented in the non-16x9 enhanced aspect ratios of 1.33:1 and 2.35:1, with a 192Kb/s Dolby Digital 2.0 soundtrack.

Marco Polo scene (deleted) - 1:23 minutes
The Men's Room (deleted) - 1:31 minutes
Extra Shake and Bake (extended) - 1:46 minutes

Outtakes and Bloopers (2:37 minutes)

This is presented in the 16x9 enhanced aspect ratio of 2.35:1, with a 448Kb/s Dolby Digital 5.0 soundtrack. This is basically the sequence that appears at the end of the movie before the credits, so there isn't much, if any footage that we haven't already seen in it.

Music Video - "Independent Women Part 1" by Destiny's Child (4:06 minutes)

This video clip has great picture quality, presented in the non-16x9 enhanced aspect ratio of 1:85:1, with a 192Kb/s Dolby Digital 2.0 soundtrack.

Music Video - "Charlie's Angels 2000" by Apollo Four Forty (4:13 minutes)

Presented in the non-16x9 enhanced aspect ratio of 1:85:1, with a 192Kb/s Dolby Digital 2.0 soundtrack.

Filmographies (5)

This section contains Biographies and Filmographies for McG (Director), Cameron Diaz, Drew Barrymore, Lucy Liu and Bill Murray.

Theatrical Trailer - Charlie's Angels (2:01 minutes)

Presented in the non-16x9 enhanced aspect ratio of 1.85:1, with a 448Kb/s Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack.

Theatrical Trailer - Charlie's Angels Teaser Trailer (1:28 minutes)

This trailer has great picture quality, presented 1.85:1 and 16x9 enhanced, with a 448Kb/s Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack.

Theatrical Trailer - My Best Friend's Wedding (2:17 minutes)

This trailer is also of great picture quality, presented 1.85:1 16x9 enhanced, with a 192kb/s Dolby Digital 2.0 surround-encoded soundtrack. There is lots of unseen footage in this trailer so it's definitely worth checking out if you have seen the movie.

Theatrical Trailer - Vertical Limit (1:59 minutes)

This trailer is of great picture and sound quality, presented in the 16x9 enhanced aspect ratio of 1.85:1, with a 448Kb/s Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack.

Theatrical Trailer - Almost Famous (1:58 minutes)

The Almost Famous theatrical trailer is presented in the non-16x9 enhanced aspect ratio of 1.80:1, with a 192Kb/s Dolby Digital 2.0 surround-encoded soundtrack.

Easter Egg #1 (0:08 minutes)

From the first 'Extra Features' page, select 'Welcome To Angel World' and press the right arrow. The Extra Features heading will now be selected - now press the Enter key. This short extra is of the three angels doing those famous hair flicks. This Easter Egg is presented in the 16x9 enhanced aspect ratio of 1.88:1, with a 192Kb/s Dolby Digital 2.0 soundtrack.

Easter Egg #2 (1:17 minutes)

From the second 'Extra Features' page, select 'Wired Angels' and press the left arrow. The Extra Features heading will now be selected. Press the Enter key. This extra shows Drew Barrymore having a mould being taken of her face. Presented in the non-16x9 enhanced aspect ratio of 1.68:1, with a 192Kb/s Dolby Digital 2.0 soundtrack.

Easter Egg #3 (1:17 minutes)

From the third 'Extra Features' page, select '

R4 vs R1

NOTE: To view non-R4 releases, your equipment needs to be multi-zone compatible and usually also NTSC compatible.

The Region 4 version of this disc misses out on;

RCE protection
Production Notes
Theatrical Trailers - Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, The Adventures of Joe Dirt and Final Fantasy
DVD-ROM weblink to official website
Additional English and French Dolby Digital 2.0 soundtracks
French subtitles

The Region 1 version of this disc misses out on;

Theatrical Trailer - Almost Famous
Additional Hungarian 448Kb/s Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack
A truck load of subtitles

As there are only minor differences between the R1 and R4 versions, I feel the R4 version is easily the disc of choice here.

Summary

I enjoyed Charlie's Angels at the cinema and I still enjoyed it second time around.

The picture quality is great and its only real flaw is the mild edge enhancement.

The audio quality is excellent and it only just misses out on being reference quality.

There is a superb selection of extras, all of which are of very good quality or better.

Ratings (out of 5)

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall

Review Equipment
DVD	Sony DVP-725, using Component output
Display	Sony Projector VPH-G70 (No Line Doubler), Technics Da-Lite matt screen with gain of 1.0 (229cm). This display device is 16x9 capable.
Audio Decoder	Built in to amplifier/receiver. Calibrated with Video Essentials.
Amplification	Onkyo TX-DS989
Speakers	Fronts: Energy RVS-1 (3), Rears: Energy RVSS-1 (2), Subwoofer: Energy EPS-150 (1)

Other Reviews
DVD Net - Anthony H (read my bio)
The DVD Bits - Mark W
DVDownUnder - Matt G
Web Wombat - James A
Dark Horizons - Garth F
SpannerWorks - Adam Barratt (symbiosis)