By REBECCA BARRY
(Herald rating: * * * *)
The plot is thinner than the clothing, but for a sequel that satirises its own cheese factor, it's easier to enjoy its incongruity than to bag it.
This time the Angels must recover two stolen rings encrypted with information about the country's witness-protection programme
by motorcycling, jet-flying and surfing their way from northern Mongolia to Hollywood.
They fight Matrix-style, wearing stupidly sexy outfits and bulletproof bras. They emerge from crashes that have pulverised their cars and continue "ass-kicking" without so much as a sore knee.
In one particularly full-throttle scene they hurtle off a dam in a military truck, fall into a helicopter, start the thing and fly off before hitting the water.
While the action is as ridiculous as the big hair fashion - Dylan (Drew Barrymore) revisits her retro side - the sexual innuendo is enough to get Hugh Hefner hot and bothered.
Natalie (Cameron Diaz) and her boyfriend discover they were both high school mascots - one a beaver, the other a suitably rude-sounding fowl.
Alex (Lucy Liu) tells her dad she desperately needs to have a shower, having just taken on a large group of sailors. There's also a silly bums-on-seats gag in which the Angels pose as erotic dancers.
Of course the sequel is deliberately more camp and frivolous than the first, stylised by ex-music-vid-maker McG's Tarantino-esque direction. But it also reveals a small number of oddities.
Bernie Mac replaces Bill Murray as the bumbling Bosley, with little explanation as to the change. The creepy Thin Man returns, this time as Dylan's five-minute love interest.
But for all its laughable idiocy, the film's true wit comes in its casting and cameos. Matt Le Blanc returns as Alex's film star boyfriend, John Cleese plays her WASP dad, original Angel Jaclyn Smith shows up in soft focus, and Pink plays a biker chick.
Bruce Willis gets a bit-part and Demi Moore plays a convincing former Angel-gone-bad. She even takes the mickey out of the trio's "ass-kicking pose" to which Alex responds by calling her a "bi-atch".
It's the smartest big dumb movie this year.
Cast: Cameron Diaz, Drew Barrymore, Lucy Liu, Bernie Mac, Demi Moore, John Cleese Director: McG Running time: 106 mins Rating: M Screening: Village, Hoyts, Berkeley cinemas
