Not the best Woody Allen but still fun

Rating: 7/10 (14 July 2013)

Cartoonish with bad contrived forced acting (like a dry run-through of a script). This required a huge suspension of disbelief on the viewer's part. Why was Woody even in this? He is FAR too old to be a plausible parent - should have been the grandparent. He apparently decided to take the bold approach of having his usual stand-in little Jewish kid (Jesse Eisenberg) AND himself in the movie (some kind of existential paradox?). Having said that, I do still like Woody in his own films - but I want him off to the side as in Scoop. The only actors who were good were Roberto Benigni (outstanding), Alec Baldwin, Penélope Cruz, and Greta Gerwig. Also, Fabio Armiliato is a fantastic singer,
Here Woody Allen takes his own invented genre to its own cartoonist extreme. We, the viewers, are supposed to suspend all sense of reality to accept this. This is the new genre of Woody Allen totally using a city as a crutch to support any contrivance of a plot and script. It is like each actor is doing a Woody Allen imitation (are they that intimidated by his presence???). He also relies on his tired formula of having several unrelated story lines intertwined.
If you drop your critical eye and just enjoy this movie, it is entertaining. Actually the brilliant Roberto Benigni makes this movie on his own. He is hilarious. Penelope Cruz is also a lot of fun.
p.s. I can't believe that reviewer Grey Gardens called Scoop Woody Allen's worst film! I loved that movie.