Charlie's Angels

Factual error: Near the end of the film, Knox is flying a Huey helicopter, and the Angels hitch a ride by shooting it with a speargun and dangling on the line behind it. Suddenly adding about 200kg to a Huey in flight like that is going to cause all sorts of problems with the trim and airspeed of the aircraft. The pilot would know immediately that something was wrong. (01:23:20)

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Suggested correction: Knox wasn't a trained pilot. Either he had no clue to what was going on, or he thought something may have been wrong, but didn't know what to do about it.

Taking off and landing a helicopter are by far the most intense and difficult part of a pilot's training. Seriously, 99% of learning to fly is learning how to land and take off. If the pilot is skilled enough to take off in a Huey he is easily skilled enough to notice a massive additional drag on his helicopter due to the additional weight of the angels and the air resistance put up by such a bulky protrusion on his aircraft. If he isn't skilled enough to notice that, he isn't skilled enough to take off in the first place.

Factual error: In the opening scene with the terrorist on the aeroplane, the LL Cool J character opens the hatch to the cabin and jumps out with the mad bomber. Pretty amazing considering aircraft doors open inward, requiring about two tons of force to overcome the air pressure exerted from inside the cabin. (00:03:05)

Factual error: The airplane they jump out of at the beginning would be travelling at cruising altitude where it is roughly -30 outside with a wind chill of -30 and -10 for travelling at terminal velocity. They do so without using the Extreme Cold Weather clothing that parachutists must use at this height due to the fact that any exposed skin would be frostbitten within seconds. Also they have no means of breathing the amount of oxygen that a human needs as they are too high up to get an adequate supply.

Factual error: At the end of the movie, the villain shoots a missile from his helicopter at a beach house. Just before he fires, Lucy Liu changes the missile (upon which she is sitting) from laser-guidance to heat-seeking, causing the missile to circle around and blow up the chopper. The heat-seeking missile would have locked onto the strong return from the beach, and not pursued a target that was behind it. (01:21:50)

Factual error: When the Angels are chasing Creepy Thin Man down the alley, he turns and fires approximately 20 shots at them without reloading. The luger pistol has an 8 shot magazine. (00:23:35)

Factual error: In the Indycar scene, both Cameron Diaz and Crispin Glover couldn't jump in their cars and drive off without help from the pit crews because CART cars don't have starters installed. The cars must be started manually from the back by one of the crew. Also, Indycars must be kept at a very high RPM or else they will stall out, so the quiet scene on the bridge wouldn't happen because both cars would have died. And without a crew member present, they couldn't get the cars restarted for the game of chicken. (00:30:35)

Factual error: When the two are falling from the plane, they achieve terminal velocity or 125 miles per hour. The parachutist from the helicopter grabs the bad guy and pulls the cord opening the parachute, which means achieving 4Gs or weighing four times your normal weight as deceleration from 125 mph to 18 mph takes place under a second. There is no way that that Angel could have held on to someone weighing four times their normal weight.

Factual error: In the scene in which Dylan and Natalie are wearing their men's diguises to break into Redstar's secure area, Natalie wears contact lenses to pass the retinal scan. The retina is inside the eye, and could not be disguised by a lens over the front of the eye. (00:38:35)

Factual error: Given that the Angels are all about stopping crime and so on, is it not a bit reckless that they would just rip the door off a flying plane? Anyone not wearing a seatbelt would have been sucked out and killed, which would undoubtedly cause Charlie a spot of bother in law cases and so forth. Just a thought. (00:03:15)

Factual error: When the girl fell from the building naked, those two boys were playing a playstation game - Final Fantasy 8. A two-player option wasn't introduced until the next game in the franchise, how come both of them are playing it at the same time? And they're just randomly hitting the buttons...

Factual error: The California Speedway, which Charlie refers to by name, is inland in Los Angeles, and no closer than 30 miles from any ports (the bridge scene), and even further from the bridge in San Pedro that the crash scene is at. (00:27:25)

Factual error: At the beginning, a man says, "Thank You" and then something like, "dor je." The closed captions say it's Japanese, but it's really Chinese.

Factual error: Any trained scuba diver knows you don't wear your mask on your forehead, it is seen as a sign of distress. (01:09:05)

Factual error: The bird that forms a major plot point is not a pygmy nuthatch, which looks completely different than the bird shown (an oriole, if I remember correctly). Also, pygmy nuthatches definitely aren't only found in that area of California (which was another major point made in the movie). They're actually found lots of places in the west and central US. Finally, pygmy nuthatches don't have a song anything remotely like the one that forms the rest of that plot point. Not a major mistake for most people, just for birders! (01:02:50)

Factual error: Assuming that the Agency is in LA, possibly Beverly Hills, it would take 5 hours to get to Carmel. From Carmel to get to Paradise Cove (where Charlie is located) it would take another 5 hours. Paradise Cove is south in Malibu, not north (as Alex claims).

Revealing mistake: When the Angels are fighting the "Creepy Thin Man," right before Drew Barrymore lifts up Lucy Liu to spin her around and kick the thin man, to get Lucy's attention, Drew hollers out "Lucy!" even though Lucy Liu's character's name is "Alex." (00:26:20 - 00:27:25)

More mistakes in Charlie's Angels

Pete: I'll get tickets.
Natalie: I love tickets!

More quotes from Charlie's Angels

Trivia: Since Drew, Cameron and Lucy are all anti gun, they went through the entire movie using alternatives to guns.

More trivia for Charlie's Angels

Question: Does anyone know whether the African Prince in the opening sequence was actually Drew Barrymore herself in disguise, or whether it was an actor who was replaced by Drew in the revealing scene ("I think you mean crazy bitch"..."Damn I hate to fly" etc...) Thanks.

Answer: The African Prince is rapper LL Cool J, so yes, it was someone who is then replaced by Barrymore.

T Poston

More questions & answers from Charlie's Angels

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