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There are certain things we've come to expect from a Woody Allen film: the same music, the same opening credits, the same self-deprecating humor and, for the most part, a lot of the same acting talent. His stories often take place in the 1930s, almost always clock in at under two hours, and are generally well-received by the press and Oscar (he's a 20-time nominee and two-time winner).
Despite the somewhat superficial similarities between his films, Woody always creates original stories. You can count on him to be daring and imaginative, year in and year out (literally - he averages at least one film annually). No remakes. No sequels. You'd sooner see him cheering on Reggie Miller than writing a derivative, formulaic script. And he's a better actor than anyone is willing to admit.
But The Curse of the Jade Scorpion just isn't up to snuff, at least for a guy who has continually set the bar pretty high. It's the first film since 1994's Bullets Over Broadway that Woody has made without the help of Sweetland Films (he's suing former producer Jean Doumanian, and she's suing him back), and while it's certainly better than most of the hackneyed romantic comedies out there (like America's Sweethearts, the genre's only other high-profile summer offering), Scorpion is still disappointing.
Woody (Small Time Crooks) plays C.W. Briggs, an investigator for North Coast Insurance in late 1930s Manhattan. He's one of the company's best employees and, as the film opens, C.W. has just recovered a stolen Picasso from a very unusual place. He shuns modern technology (like fingerprinting) in favor of old techniques and hunches. When his co-workers ask how he does it, C.W. informs them that he puts himself in the shoes of the criminal. "I'd hate to have me after me," he proudly declares.
That's what they call foreshadowing, kids. At a birthday party for a co-worker at the Rainbow Room, C.W. and his arch-nemesis, ball-breaking efficiency expert Betty Ann Fitzgerald (Helen Hunt, Cast Away), are hypnotized by a magician named Voltan (David Ogden Stiers) who waves a supposedly magical jade scorpion in front of them. Even though the two passionately hate each other, Voltan gets C.W. and Betty Ann to say lovey-dovey things to each other while they're under his spell. Everybody laughs and goes home, amazed at Voltan's abilities and assuming the trick is over.
Voltan has other plans, though. He calls C.W., utters the magic word to put him under and has him steal millions of dollars' worth of jewels from homes that he personally has made burglarproof. He is put in charge of the investigation and, before long, C.W. is the prime suspect in the heists, even though he has no memory of committing any crime.
It's pretty easy to stay one step (sometimes two, even) ahead of the plot (Manhattan Murder Mystery was more of a, uh, mystery). The rest of Scorpion focuses on the bizarre relationship between chauvinistic C.W. and Vassar alum Betty Ann. The two adversaries trade nasty barb after nasty barb, but we all know her hurtful words and his threatened masculinity are just a cover for their attraction to each other - hypnotized or not
While still consistently funny, I can't recall more of Woody's gags falling as flat as some do in Scorpion. His C.W. is a sad, horny old man who tells dated jokes and hits on office bimbos (like Elizabeth Berkeley). Hunt's Betty Ann is another educated women who doesn't think twice about boffing her boss, played by Evolution's Dan Aykroyd (a la Janet McTeer in Songcatcher). The horrible things they say to each other, while quite often humorous, are so surprisingly mean-spirited, I found myself rooting for Voltan to rake C.W. and Betty Ann over the coals. And that couldn't have been Woody's intentions with this film.
Scorpion was photographed by the extremely talented Asian cinematographer Zhao Fei, who has worked on Woody's previous two films (as well as Chen Kaige's wonderful The Emperor and the Assassin). Production designer Santo Loquasto, who has worked on each of Woody's films since 1987 (that's 15 movies), does a great job at recreating '30s Manhattan (as usual). And Woody's direction is typically strong. It's just a shame his script wasn't.
1:43 - PG-13 for some sexual content
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