Charlie's Angels Full Throttle | 2003

The follow up to the enjoyably poppy Charlie’s Angels is like a roomful of hyperactive kids, the enthusiasm can get just a wee bit wearing, and you’d be forgiven for wanting all concerned to chill out and lie down in a darkened room for a bit.

Once again, it’s filmed around Los Angeles, with plenty of touristy spots to see.

The beach, where the Angels check out  Sex Wax and come across fallen angel Madison Lee (Demi Moore) is the familiar Zuma Beach in Malibu.

The dirt bike chase uses a real coalfield on Terminal Island, down south of Los Angeles in San Pedro. And, naturally, the harbour scenes were filmed in San Pedro itself. You can see Southwest Marine again in Steven Spielberg’s The Lost World: Jurassic Park.

Natalie (Cameron Diaz) has moved from the canals of Venice, with boyf Pete (Luke Wilson), to 2028 The Strand, in Hermosa Beach.

And Alex (Lucy Liu) now lives in architect John Lautner’s still futuristic-looking (though it was built in 1963) Sheats Goldstein Residence, 10104 Angelo View Drive in Benedict Canyon, which you might recognise as the home of Treehorn in The Big Lebowski.

Another celebrity house: the orphanage, where the angels, in nun drag, check out the past of the Thin Man (Crispin Glover), is about as far from a convent as you could imagine. It’s Hugh Hefner’s Playboy Mansion, 10236 Charing Cross Road off Mapleton Drive, running between the western reaches of Sunset Boulevard and Los Angeles Country Club. You can see the estate as itself in Beverly Hills Cop II and of course in Quentin Tarantino's Once Upon A Time In Hollywood.

The dance at ‘Rydell High’ (a namecheck for Grease) is Birmingham High School, 17000 Haynes Street, Van Nuys, seen also in the wonderfully gluggy schlocker Society.

Dylan (Drew Barrymore) loses her mojo (it’s easily done) and hares off to ‘Mexico’, where she receives wisdom from former angel Jaclyn Smith. The ‘Mexican’ bar is El Carmen, 1838 West Third Street in midtown Los Angeles.

Beneath the elaborate dressing, the lair of Madison Lee is none other than the deco splendour of Union Station, 800 South Alameda Street, downtown Los Angeles, familiar from the likes of Blade Runner and Pearl Harbor.

The climax of the movie centres around Hollywood Boulevard. Maximum Extreme 2 is premiering at Grauman’s Chinese Theatre, 6925 Hollywood Boulevard; the gang gets the map from the foyer of the Guinness World  of Records, 6764 Hollywood Boulevard; hands over the suitcase in the classic old Musso and Frank Grill, 6667 Hollywood Boulevard (seen also in Tim Burton’s Ed Wood and the remake of Ocean’s Eleven; and marches through the foyer of the Roosevelt Hotel, 7000 Hollywood Boulevard, seen in Almost Famous and Catch Me If You Can.

The roof of the Roosevelt, with its landmark red neon sign, was recreated in the studio, as was the roof of Disney flagship El Capitan Theatre, 6838 Hollywood Boulevard. Madison Lee (who’s specialist subject is flying mammals, remember) flies off down Hollywood Boulevard.

Well, not quite. The tattoo parlors, Goth shops and memorabilia stores of Hollywood are suddenly replaced by the gutted old edifices of Broadway in downtown LA.

The chase roars past the distinctive marquee of the Orpheum Theatre, 842 South Broadway, before climaxing in the gorgeous auditorium of the Los Angeles Theatre, 615 South Broadway, where Lee goes down to flaming hell. The Los Angeles is understandably a screen regular – it can be seen in Batman Forever, Chaplin, New York, New York, as well as in the first Charlie’s Angels film.

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