Angel III: The Final Chapter

This third installment in the Angel franchise can be enjoyed as a stand-alone film.Molly Stewart who we have seen in two previous films as a teenager in high school and then as a college student in the second film now is an adult woman working as a photographer in New York.She goes back to Los Angeles when she discovers her long lost mother and finds out she has a half sister.It seems that her mother has become involved with international drug dealers who are holding her daughter hostage to force cooperation with them.When Molly's mother proves to be too troublesome she is killed.So Molly Stewart goes into her Angel persona to track down her mother's killers and find the lost half sister she discovered she has.

The movie is so over the top that it actually works as a low budget action exploitation film.

Perfectly acceptable and fun sequel that does manage to add a few interesting twists and turns along the way. This time, Angel is avenging the death of her estranged mother who's been mixed up in a sex trafficking organization run by Maude Adams and is trying to save her long lost sister from being the next victim of the organization.

It's nice to see Angel's real family, the cast is pretty good, there are some exciting action set pieces, and funny bits of satire on the adult film industry. It breezes by with very few slow spots, which makes it a very easy viewing experience.

If you have been reading my reviews, you will have seen that I have reviewed the original "Angel" movie and its first sequel "Avenging Angel". So what took me so long to get to "Angel III"? Well, I DID see this movie years ago... but on commercial television, and it seemed unfair to review an exploitation movie when it had been extensively edited. But today I found an uncut copy at a thrift store and watched it, so I'll review it now.

First, the good stuff. The production values of this movie are not only good, they are the best of the three New World "Angel" movies. It looks like some serious money was spent at times. It's odd that this movie went straight to video when the cheaper-looking first two movies were theatrically released.

When it comes to sleaze, the movie delivers more than the first two movies combined. There is a significant amount of nudity, and some of this sleaze is pretty funny to watch (like the porn film shoot.) The performances by the cast are pretty good, giving us likable good guys and hissable bad guys. (But it's clear that Adams and Roundtree only spent a few days being filmed for their surprisingly smaller-than-you'd-expect roles.)

Now for the not-so-good stuff: I thought the confrontation scene of Angel with her mother made less than an impact that I think it would in real life. (Maybe the filmmakers were afraid of being too harsh.) The main ways the movie screws up is that the movie is both too long (100 minutes long!) and too slow. There's a lot here that could be eliminated, which would have given the movie an appropriately zippy pace. Also, there is the unexplained thing about Angel being a photographer in this movie - in the previous movie she was studying law... what happened?

If you suffered through the disappointing first two "Angel" movies, this movie will give you some relief... though you'll still think it could be better. As for "Angel 4" (made by a different production company), I guess I will review it if I find a copy - I've gone through this series so far, so I might as well stay to the very end.

This was the first time that I saw this movie. I thought it was really good. This was the first time that I saw her acting before Silk Stalkings. So far every time I see her in movies or on tv series she plays a good person mainly roles as cops or security guards or a naval investigator. The only other role that I have seen her play was a lifeguard on Baywatch. I think that she is a really good actress and a great role model for girls of all ages.ý

When I bought the box-set trio of movies, I didn't expect much. Something controversial, yes, something in sexy movie history, yes, but not necessarily any good. The first two has a plethora of oddball characters which go way, way over the top, often chewing up the scenery, ruining what had been built up, especially in the original (see my recent review). It is as one of the other reviewers said, this one's the best. By far. Unfortunately I am not a Mitzi Kapture fan, and she's really the least convincing ANGEL of the lot. But I had a great surprise finding Laura Albert (the G-string not nude dancer very early on) and discovering Tawny Fere (wow, sigh, anybody else ever noticed the influence Kylie Minogue had on Tawny's nightclub appearance?).

Hey, you buncha IMDbored commentators... In this genre, you should know, this is a gem. There's an actual story, not too much ghoulish gruesome bloodiness, some really really pretty scenery of the two-legged kind, and a really pretty kid like Tawny Fere thrown in as a co-star.

Good thing they dropped the cowboy and the old auntie. Don't wanna step on too many SILK STALKINGS toes, but the lead lady kinda doesn't do it for me...