AAAAARGH! Can somebody shut that narrator up??!!

Rating: 3/10 (21 November 2008)

From the first minute I was irritated by the voice-over of idiotic narration that simply broadcasts hideous laziness on the part of Woody Allen. Why would he assault us this way? What does he think he added? He apparently just wanted to make subtle showing of character unnecessary -- but then why bother making the movie at all? Let's see: Maybe he thinks no one can make Scarlett look as good as he can. Or maybe he thinks Javier Bardem is overrated and set out to prove it by forcing him to talk like a robot and squelch all his sexual power. Oh, I know: maybe he just wants to show that he's such a genius that it doesn't matter what the actors do; they're really little more than mannequins, really, for him to hang his designs on. I imagine him squeezing the spirit out of the greatest actors alive, and can't understand why superstars like Bardem and Cruz would agree to work with him. Except for Penelope Cruz, Allen has managed to turn his whole talented cast into body-snatched versions of himself, as usual. I'm fed up with him.