I realize that his many fans feel Allen can do no wrong but this film stands as a mute rebuttal to that point of view.
The low rating reflects not necessarily the production values (which are almost perfect even though the film is horrid) but the blow to "media ecology" that the planet must endure when an artiste WHO SHOULD KNOW BETTER wastes talent like it grew on trees.
The "magic" here is that somehow Allen coaxed some of the best actors on the planet to give one of the worst performances of their lives.
Don't know where to start. Brolin, he of the broad facial testosterone markers, plays a simpering wimp. Watts, who almost never looks lost in a role, acts like she would rather be somewhere else. Hopkins and Bandiaras are playing variants of role they have played many times before, which suggests that, if nothing else, you are better off watching those performances, not these.
And the trademark Allen voice-over, an egoistic affectation if ever there was, serves the same role as the Surgeon General's warning on a pack of cigarettes.
The low rating reflects not necessarily the production values (which are almost perfect even though the film is horrid) but the blow to "media ecology" that the planet must endure when an artiste WHO SHOULD KNOW BETTER wastes talent like it grew on trees.
The "magic" here is that somehow Allen coaxed some of the best actors on the planet to give one of the worst performances of their lives.
Don't know where to start. Brolin, he of the broad facial testosterone markers, plays a simpering wimp. Watts, who almost never looks lost in a role, acts like she would rather be somewhere else. Hopkins and Bandiaras are playing variants of role they have played many times before, which suggests that, if nothing else, you are better off watching those performances, not these.
And the trademark Allen voice-over, an egoistic affectation if ever there was, serves the same role as the Surgeon General's warning on a pack of cigarettes.