D.E.B.S is a 2004 action spy comedy movie written and directed by Angela Robinson and based on her short film from 2003. The film stars Sara Foster, Jordana Brewster, Meagan Good, Devon Aoki, Jill Ritchie, Michael Clarke Duncan and Jessica Cauffiel. Robinson began the project as a comic book, doing the art herself during college. POWER UP then gave her $20,000 in order to do a short film and pitch the idea to a studio. The original 2003 film was a short subject filled with color, very frenetic and action-packed, it was also shot on film, something that was ditched when moving onto the feature film department, opting to go for a digital look instead. While the film did badly at the box office and got a less than stellar reception it became a cult hit among queer audiences as the years went by.
A secret test recruits female students for the D.E.B.S. (Discipline, Energy, Beauty, Strength) organization, this paramilitary academy takes care of dangerous spy missions. We follow four D.E.B.S, Max, Janet, Dominique and Amy, as they foil the plans of a villainess known as Lucy Diamond, this supercriminal accidentally begins a relationship with Amy after a failed date. Now Amy must choose between her loyalty to D.E.B.S and her love for Lucy.
I gotta give it to this movie because it takes very refreshing and new twists that you won't really expect out of a movie like this. Usually a movie like this would be an origin story as the protagonist gets into the D.E.B.S program, maybe reluctantly, and gets introduced to the spy world while having to carry a mission and save the world. Maybe there's a romantic interest in the form of a tech guy who is handsome or something. That's typically how it would go, it's a template that exists. However, this movie is nothing like that. You are thrown into a strange but likable universe where everything has already been established and the initial exposition scenes explaining the concept of D.E.B.S is all you get in the form of context in order to follow the narrative that follows, which is a lighthearted lesbian relationship building itself among two girls in the middle of two antagonistic forces, the bad girl falls in love with the girl from the good side. Nothing groundbreaking but there's charm to the fact that it's not only a mainstream movie but also because of how it plays with the genre.
What could be a problem is just how bold it is by dropping you in the middle of this world without proper guidance, the information that you need is there, but you don't really get to connect with any character immediately because everything goes by so fast and the characters themselves aren't given much to stand out aside from some small character quirks that don't really flesh them out but simply give you a vague impression of who these girls could be. Further rewatches diminish these flaws though. A couple of the DEBS girls escape this as the main conflict progresses but for the most part they are one note. Another thing is that the villainess assassin doesn't immediately look the part, so it can catch you off guard just how average she looks and how pedestrian this spy and assassin world comes off as.
With this being one of the first major films shot on digital cameras you kind of get some rather unpolished or TV-level images, the quality isn't really terrible but the resolution and the frame rate will make it look slightly more cheap and poor when compared to movies shot on film. The technology wasn't quite there and this was one of the early entries in that category so it's excusable that a few shots maybe aren't up to par, especially whenever a green screen is involved. Other than that, it's not a badly composed or shot film, the director manages to organize everything inside the frame in a stylish way and the way the action sequences are shot do have some momentum and rhythm, there's a lot of energy behind them and they don't rely too heavily on CGI at this point. I gotta say that there's a limited amount of shootouts and fights, so don't expect any kind of astounding spectacle. It's nothing as explosive as the 2000's Charlie's Angels movies but it's also not as clunky as some of the bottom of the barrel stuff could be.
When it comes to the execution of the material this one has an interesting perspective since the director mostly plays it like a very earnest relationship film with innovative gender and sexual dynamics that just happens to have both spy film elements and romcom elements. It could have been seen as exploitative with the girls in schoolgirl uniforms and such but the quirky humor and the fact that it never sexualizes the girls kind of keep it from feeling dirty or sleazy. Aside from some adult conversations this could have been a Disney Channel movie to be honest.
A highly recommended piece of 2000’s camp that will surely be a comfort film for many.
