Match Point

I'm a longtime Woody Allen fan, and unfortunately I'm sure many of my existing neuroses were finely tuned by early exposure to his best movies. But of course, like most sentient creatures, I think his last few movies were terrible. I saw Match Point, his much heralded "return to form" last night, and I half-agree. My friend Jason put it best when he said that, sure, "grading on a curve" because of Allen's last several films, this one is very good. I'd give it a B-, even with the curve. It's overlong, it has the same plot skeleton as Allen's Crime and Misdemeanors, and it has three or four ridiculous moments. Still, it does benefit from the fresh London setting, and at certain moments it gathers some steam as a thriller. Plus, no one in it resembles the babbling neurotic who made Allen's early movies so brilliant and his later ones so miserable.

Reaction to it, though, probably hinges most on one's opinion of Scarlett Johansson. It's undeniable that she is -- to use a purely technical term -- super-hot, but I've yet to see any strong evidence that she can act.