You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger (2010)

Woody Allen... a genius no doubt. But his work is most definitely more grandious as a whole than individually. Yet, as Agatha Christie could write 2 or 3 books with the same basic plot without anyone realizing it, so can Woody Allen infinity recycle his material. The basic stories can be the same, but the strong cast, the endlessly funny dialog and a few climatic emotional states give flavor and strength to the vulgar situations of life depicted in Allen's comedy/dramas. Unfortunately "You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger" is a failure, because is neither dramatic nor amusing, it hangs there in a limbo where nothing really happens for 90 minutes. The cast is still strong, but the screenplay never has power enough to entice. The situations are the same as other Allen movies, but each scenes lacks the funny touches to make them captivating, and most of the characters are lost along the way as the movie closes on only one and two more dramatically. So we get Gemma Jones, an old woman getting more and more hooked on spiritualism, who is the ex of Anthony Hopkins, who marries a much younger hooker, and whose daughter is Naomi Watts, an art gallery worker, who is married to low-down writer Josh Brolin (who starts having an affair with beautiful neighbor Freida Pinto), and who is in love with the art gallery owner Antonio Banderas, who in turn is having an affair with a painter, and so on, and so on. The first half of the movie establishes all these stories in a very slow boring way, with "normal dialog" seldom sprinkled with the Allen spices. Besides, voice off is provided, as in Vicky Christina, and again is not Allen's voice, who could have given a much needed rhythm. In the second half more dramatic events unfolds, and most characters are forgotten in favor of Brolin stealing a novel from a friend in coma, Jone's involvement with the occult and Hopkin's realizing the mistake he has made. Despite picking up a little bit and having better scenes, it never is enough, and the end product is a mushy statement about relationships and the twists and turns of life, unworthy of Allen's talent. We have seen the same, and much better, in other Allen's films. "Melinda and Melinda" (2004) was the last really bad movie of Allen. Here we have another. In the middle 5 great films. If Allen produces a bad movie ever 6 years, I personally don't mind it. But this one just really isn't worth spending the talent of the actors, and of Allen's. We eagerly await this year's "Midnight in Paris".