Angels' Brigade

Here's a typical Mystery Science Theater 3000 flick, as seven large-breasted women take on a drug syndicate headed by Jack Palance and Peter Lawford. Not only is it a dumb rip-off of CHARLIE'S ANGELS in which the women run into battle like they're wearing high heels, but it is a catalogue of movie-making goofs, including mismatched shots, bad lip-syncing, visible cameras and crossing the line.

Much of the production money seems to have been spent on short appearances by Arthur Godfrey, Alan Hale Jr. and Jim Backus. Writer/producer/director Greydon Clark may be better known for SATAN'S CHEERLEADERS; he has certainly never done better than this inept piece of garbage.

An extended jiggle-fest made watchable only through the gracious lens of "Mystery Science Theatre 3000", "Angels' Bridage" (aka "Angels' Revenge") is a truly embarrassing rip-off of "Charlie's Angels" seemingly written and directed by hormone-crazed 16-year-old boys and starring an overwhelming number of has-been B-movie character actors.

The plot, as much as there is one, involves a quasi-feminist schoolteacher trying to take out a drug ring that pushes to kids. She enlists the aid of six stereotypes...er, I mean characters: a sassy black stunt driver, an Asian martial artist (of course), a disco singer, an oversexed model, a tough cop that loves her weaponry, and a bratty, annoying teenager who happens to be one of the teacher's students.

This movie is filled with things that will either make you laugh, cringe, or simply scratch your head, depending on your tolerance for horrid cinema. There's the Vietnamese character with the Japanese name. The singer whose record is "still climbing" up the charts but is still recognized by every character in the film. The "top model" who does her fashion shoots in a mall parking lot. Jim Backus in thigh-high military boots. A genital-mutilation-as-interrogation scene played for laughs. A squad of bouncy women who paint their nails and wear spiked heels on a commando raid. And don't forget the score, which rips off all sorts of recognizable music, from the theme to "Charlie's Angels" to John Williams' opening music for "Jaws" to Strauss' "Thus Spake Zarathustra" (also known as the music from "2001: A Space Odyssey").

See what Aaron Spelling hath wrought? 1 out of 10.

Brain-dead jiggle-fest? Why, yes indeed, you've come to the right place.

Angel's Revenge/Brigade is basically "Charlie's Angels" with twice the number of cast members (six women - plus a 'high school teenager' - instead of three) and approximately 1/10th of the talent. Would be first time viewers should adjust their expectations accordingly.

Look, no one is ever going to list Kate Jackson, Farrah Fawcett, etc., among the great actresses of the '70s, but the original Angels had a lot of charm and charisma, and they could deliver their lines, interact with each other, do their stage business and blocking, and hit their marks like the professionals they were. It was all facile dreck, but it was professional level dreck.

On the other hand, "Angel's Brigade" features seven of the stiffest, most unconvincing and grating actresses on the planet. The women are moderately hot (except for the lanky black actress, who is saddled with a huge afro that makes her look like a human dandelion ), but they simply C-A-N-N-O-T deliver convincing readings of their lines. The director seems to realize this, and so he dumbs down the proceedings in an attempt to avoid making the girls show any kind of recognizable human emotion...and the resulting screenplay is so bad, so lame, that it takes genuine talents like Jack Palance, Peter Lawford, and Arthur Godfrey (and several longtime character actors like Jim Backus) and simply embarrasses them with idiotic throwaway parts that completely waste their talents. Lawford, Godfrey, and Backus, especially, all appear to be hammered out of their skulls..it's as if they couldn't be bothered to sober up long enough to appear even in the briefest scenes.

God, the whole thing is just so inane...I know this thing is not meant to be taken seriously, that it is just a goof, but it's so damned careless and annoying. One Angel disables a thug by opening a beach umbrella in his face. Another Angel takes out a thug with a back-fist accompanied by a Hanna-Barbera 'BOINK!' sound effect.A third Angel takes a hit to her, um, talents, but she has a life raft tucked under her shirt which protects her and she makes an indignant face and pulls out the raft and bonks the thug over the head with it...it's not funny and light hearted, it's just STUPID.

MST3K struggled mightily to have fun with this one, and their commentary is almost enough to turn this into a watchable experience. I can't imagine trying to watch this one 'straight'.

Avoid the original version like the plague. Even the jiggles and the jumpsuits aren't compensation enough for the pain of the performances and the screenplay.

Let's see. There was the idea that seven women without any sort of training of any kind would bring down a drug kingpin. There was the fact that none of these women ever thought to call in the police. There was the drug kingpin who stored millions of dollars of drugs in a ludicrously unguarded "processing compound."

There was this famous pop star who can apparently get around Los Angeles completely unrecognized. There was a "Vietnamese" character with a Japanese name. There was this high school girl hanging on to the trunk of a Caddy, uncommented upon by other drivers, as it sped through LA.

There were appearances by such actors as Jack Palance, Jim Backus(if you watch MST3K's version, Angel's Revenge, you can actually hear Mike and the bots groan when Backus makes his appearance), Peter Lawford(Tom Servo: "Do you think Peter Lawford even knows where he is?") and Arthur Godfrey. And there were plot holes aplenty and lots more awfulness besides this.

All of this and more make for one of the worst movies ever made by anyone. That anybody thought this was a good idea and that actors of the caliber of Jack Palance agreed to participate is mind-boggling. Watch the MST3K version which is one of their best efforts.

this movie might almost be unwatchable had it not been on MST3K. the movie is soo bad that it's good.

now let's run the numbers with the things wrong:

1) Story: bad, horrible, lack-there-of, lame. take your pick. This movie's story really never takes the time to play itself out, it really consists of one, long flashback told by one of the lead characters, and boy is it a long flashback. Maybe one of the longest in film history! We get a little something about six semi-hot women(well hot for the 70's) who are fed up with drugs being pushed to kids and decide to do something about it. What do they do? They decide they are going to blow up one small drug producing building and that is the end of drugs everywhere. Sadly this movie fails to grasp the concept that there is more then one building to destroy, but they only destroy the one and that's it. as crow says it "So they just destroyed all the drugs in the world?" Which pretty much sums up all their actions in a nutshell.

2) the acting is not so up to par. No one really turns in a decent roll in the movie, except Jack Pallance, and why he was in this movie is a good question. Possible summing it up with another thing that crow says, "Jack's down years". The rest of the characters stumble through their dialogue and try to seem convincing, but it's just not possible with this movie(and I use this term lightly - it's more like a romp through the bowls of bad cinema).

Nothing much else can be said about this bad movie, except that it made for one good episode of MST3K. Probably one of my favorites next to Puma Man, Jack Frost, and a few others.

I would only recommend this movie if you are viewing the mst3k version. You are guaranteed the laugh through the episode.