Scoop 2006

Rene Rodriguez, Miami Herald: The result is decidedly minor Woody, and unlike Match Point, far from essential. Read more

Moira MacDonald, Seattle Times: A bouncy comedy/mystery about a young would-be journalist (Scarlett Johansson) trying to solve a crime. Read more

Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune: Scoop isn't going for complexity. It's a trifle. Like its rootless vaudevillian magician, however, it feels neither here nor there. Read more

Andrew Sarris, New York Observer: Woody -- enough with the one-liners. Read more

Joe Morgenstern, Wall Street Journal: It's full of funny lines and clever inventions. Read more

Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle: Scoop has something Match Point didn't, something that none of Allen's films have had to quite this degree in 10 years. It's really, really funny. Read more

Ebert & Roeper: Read more

Eleanor Ringel Gillespie, Atlanta Journal-Constitution: It's a disappointing backslide from the mini comeback of last year's Match Point. Read more

Tasha Robinson, AV Club: There's a taut thriller somewhere inside Scoop, and it tries gamely to get out whenever Johansson and Jackman end up alone onscreen with their generic, serviceable roles. Read more

Bill Muller, Arizona Republic: It's a pleasing blend of Abbott and Costello and Foul Play, tickling the audience in all the right spots. Read more

Ty Burr, Boston Globe: It saddens me to report -- Scoop is distinctly minor Allen, with less weight to it than one of his old humor doodles in The New Yorker. Read more

Carina Chocano, Los Angeles Times: Scoop feels like a tentative doodle in the general direction of Match Point, only chronologically reversed and more or less amusing. Read more

Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader: One form of low-rent showbiz Allen depicts in Scoop is Fleet Street journalism, but it's depicted with none of the witty rancor or intelligence of Evelyn Waugh's 1937 Scoop. Read more

Bruce Westbrook, Houston Chronicle: Scoop, an amiable romp of lighthearted fun. Read more

Peter Rainer, Christian Science Monitor: The collision of sleek melodrama and old Woody Allen stand-up routines is at times oddly effective and at other times just odd. Read more

Lisa Kennedy, Denver Post: A romp of a thing, Scoop won't be mistaken for splendid. Yet for diminutive pleasure, the murder- mystery comedy can rightly be called splendini. Read more

Tom Long, Detroit News: Things don't really get ugly in Scoop, they just feel very familiar very quickly, which doesn't mean it's necessarily bad, just awfully lightweight and terribly unoriginal. Read more

Lisa Schwarzbaum, Entertainment Weekly: A companion piece to Match Point that suffers all the more in comparison. Read more

Terry Lawson, Detroit Free Press: Anyone who assumed Match Point heralded a return to form or a renaissance for one the great American filmmakers should be sorely disappointed by Scoop. Read more

Liam Lacey, Globe and Mail: The movie is watchable, there's the occasional good one-liner, but it's extremely slight, overly drawn out and never for a moment believable. Read more

Philip Wuntch, Dallas Morning News: Some may dismiss Scoop as 'minor Woody Allen' because it doesn't traffic in major psychological probes. But it makes you smile. And that's not such a minor accomplishment. Read more

Scott Foundas, L.A. Weekly: The direction is lazy and the script thoroughly witless, from its token Bergman references to dialogue that suggests a night in borscht-belt hell. Read more

Gene Seymour, Newsday: Filmmaking for Allen appears to have settled into little more than personal habit, like shaving, dining or playing clarinet once a week with his jazz band. The result has for some time been a hit-and-miss process. Read more

David Edelstein, New York Magazine/Vulture: Read more

Stephen Whitty, Newark Star-Ledger: Modest and forgettable, it's Woody Lite. Read more

Jack Mathews, New York Daily News: To see Allen, now 70, trying to reclaim the persona he's been handing off is like watching Willie Mays fall down trying to hit a curve ball during his last season. Read more

Roger Moore, Orlando Sentinel: Scoop. It's a tired, thin, almost laughless reminder of the earlier Allen. Read more

James Berardinelli, ReelViews: A blend of lackluster comedy and lazy plotting, the film feels a lot like bad Hitchcock. Read more

Stephanie Zacharek, Salon.com: Nestled as it is amid the clamor of the late-summer blockbusters, it's the kind of small pleasure that can make you feel intensely grateful. Read more

St. Louis Post-Dispatch: Read more

Geoff Pevere, Toronto Star: If only it were funny instead of just passably amusing, and if only Allen's movies hadn't declined to such a state of rote self-repetition that even passably amusing is tantamount to a compliment. Read more

Claudia Puig, USA Today: Scoop is worthwhile viewing for Allen's quips. Just don't expect much of a story. Read more

Todd McCarthy, Variety: After Woody Allen had made one too many 'serious' films, his devoted fans longed for him to go back to being funny again. Things now have come full circle, for after Scoop, they're going to wish the Woodman would stick to serious drama from now on. Read more

Stephen Hunter, Washington Post: Scoop is the worst movie Woody Allen has ever made. Read more