The Curse of the Jade Scorpion 2001

Glenn Lovell, San Jose Mercury News: A stylish and fun little bauble. Read more

Terry Lawson, Detroit Free Press: In nearly four decades of filmmaking, Woody Allen has been hilarious, brilliant, maddening, contrary and unsettling. Never, though, has he been so ordinary. Read more

Connie Ogle, Miami Herald: A pleasant, enjoyable diversion for anybody weaned on Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell. Read more

Michael Wilmington, Chicago Tribune: Seemingly a simple comedy, it actually -- like all Allen's 'simple' comedies -- has a lot to say. Read more

Ebert & Roeper: Read more

Susan Stark, Detroit News: The title is, to be sure, delightful but the movie itself is, finally, a trifle. Read more

Moira MacDonald, Seattle Times: The director may be coasting with Jade Scorpion, but audiences will likely have too much fun to care. Read more

Philip Wuntch, Dallas Morning News: The film comes dangerously close to a vanity project and will give ammunition to the filmmaker's detractors. Read more

A.O. Scott, New York Times: A charming trifle that flatters the good taste of everyone involved: the cast, the audience and, not least, the writer- director. Read more

John Anderson, Newsday: The frothiest, funniest comedy he has made since Manhattan Murder Mystery. Read more

David Edelstein, Slate: It's evidently important to Allen to work, work, work, but he's starting to make his movies by rote instead of passion. Read more

Eleanor Ringel Gillespie, Atlanta Journal-Constitution: We still prefer his earlier, funnier movies. Read more

Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times: Its plotting is too derivative of what it should be spoofing, and a plodding pace creates an energyless quality that makes it play longer than its 103 minutes. Read more

Eric Harrison, Houston Chronicle: This new one has a clever premise, is well-acted, and has a polished, deliberately antiquated look, but it elicits more shrugs than laughs. Read more

Paul Tatara, CNN.com: It seems that Allen now makes pictures out of habit, rather than desire or ambition, and the results often feel more like rough drafts than finished products. Read more

Entertainment Weekly: The entire machinery of the movie seems to be rotating around Woody Allen's vanity. Read more

Liam Lacey, Globe and Mail: Feels like an exercise in seasoned craft with an occasional good line, which can't help seeming hugely lacking in ambition. There's a prevailing sense that the wind has gone out of Allen's artistic sails. Read more

Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader: [Allen's] let his guard down and has allowed himself and his audience to relax -- something that doesn't often happen when the specters of class and European art hover over his pictures. Read more

Peter Rainer, New York Magazine/Vulture: The romance between C.W. and Betty Ann doesn't have much ardor, repressed or otherwise. Read more

Rex Reed, New York Observer: This is not Woody's sharpest writing, and his direction lulls so often that I found myself nodding off. But there are enough funny bits to make you want more. Read more

James Berardinelli, ReelViews: This movie is supposed to be a lot funnier than it actually is. Read more

Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times: The movie is a pleasure to watch, the craft is voluptuous to regard, but The Curse of the Jade Scorpion lacks the elusive zing of inspiration. Read more

Charles Taylor, Salon.com: Allen's new picture, The Curse of the Jade Scorpion, is nothing but plot and production values, and there's barely a laugh in it that isn't quashed. Read more

Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle: Many of the jokes fall flat, and the film has a musty smell about it, like an apartment someone has been living in for too long. Yet the picture plays out pleasantly, and Allen creates a world that's easy to inhabit. Read more

Peter Howell, Toronto Star: It has that same kind of hit-and-miss comedy about it, and Allen is really just going through the motions at this point, just as Groucho often was. Read more

Time Out: Read more

Susan Wloszczyna, USA Today: It ain't great Woody by a long shot, and his battling with Hunt grows tiresome. But it's better than his last outing, Small Time Crooks, and its stilted stoogery. Read more

Robert Koehler, Variety: Little remains after Jade Scorpion is over other than a hazy nostalgic sense for a time that most viewers never knew and that Allen himself was barely old enough to remember. Read more

Amy Taubin, Village Voice: The best that can be said of The Curse of the Jade Scorpion ... is that it's not as awful as Celebrity. Read more