Allen again

Allen Again

The Curse of the Jade Scorpion

Director: Woody Allen

Cast: Woody Allen, Helen Hunt, Dan Aykroyd, Elizabeth Berkley, Charlize Theron, Brian Markinson, David Ogden Stiers, Wallace Shawn

Cert: 15PG.

You either love Allen ... or you don't.

His long-running love affair with New York continues unabated in this clever and often very funny homage in which he plays a nervous and put-upon insurance investigator in which Hunt has arrived as a demon bent on up-dating everything.

Through a complicated plotline in which hypnosis is used to turn them into friends of a sort ... well, it's Allen at his sort-of best and you'll have to stick with it to enjoy it.

The thing about this film is that it looks better than it plays. There is all the usual period delight - it's circa l940s - but Allen's never-ending playing of high anxiety often annoys. His script is paper-thin and ultimately takes us nowhere in particular.

He has gathered, as always, a formidable cast and many of the players contribute performances the film hardly merits. Hunt, as the formidable efficiency expert, is particularly good.

At its best, thern, this ranks as a disappointing Allen offering.

Star Rating: 2/5