Middlebrow pap that imbeciles will love

Rating: 3/10 (29 April 2014)

"Don Jon" is a dim, irritating procession of clichés marshaled in service of middlebrow assertions and self-serving conclusions. This is a film that states the obvious, ad infinitum, and is quite satisfied with itself for doing so. Scarlett Johansson and Julianne Moore are lovely, in fine form, and play their parts well. But what maddens here is the script, which never once succeeds in keeping itself from relishing in stating worn-out thoughts everyone has had, and then gloating on how it has whelped what to any sentient, thinking viewer is mere stultification. For some people, the world makes more sense when rendered in cliché, but for a film where masturbation instead of intercourse is a theme, the main masturbators in question are the filmmakers, who never have any sentient, cognitive, contemplative intercourse with viewers.