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WARNING! This review will reveal the ending of the movie, "Scoop." If you don't want to know how the movie ends, don't read this review!
"Scoop" is so bad you'll think "Annie Hall" was a fluke.
It gets one star because you get to see Hugh Jackman's naked chest. That's the only thing "Scoop" has going for it.
Woody Allen's misogyny, and his fixation on women young enough, at this point, to be his granddaughter, has crippled any ability to make movies he may have had at any point.
The plot seems promising: a ghost, Ian McShane, directs a fluffy headed student, Scarlett Johansson, to investigate whether or not an English Lord, Hugh Jackman, is the notorious Tarot Card Killer of prostitutes. A magician, Woody Allen, helps the girl.
Promising plot notwithstanding, the movie completely lacks charm, or humor, or atmosphere. It's an amazingly leaden, amateurish effort for someone who has made even one previous film, never mind dozens. Perhaps Allen has had a stroke that has gone unreported in the press.
Much is made of the fact that unlike in his previous films, Woody Allen, now a septuagenarian, has FINALLY allowed a younger male lead to get the girl.
Not so. In fact, the plot is constructed in such a way so that the girl gets no one.
There is an early scene where Johansson, for no reason central to the movie, allows herself to be gotten drunk, and seduced, by a powerful, older director. "Seduced" is a euphemism for what happens. It's a "slam, bam, I've gotta go" kind of moment. It bears no relation to the plot whatsoever, and it cheapens Johansson in the viewer's eye. Why did Allen add that unnecessary scene to the movie? Because it shows a powerful director - like Allen - having sex with the female lead. Allen gets to have his cake and eat it, too.
Johansson is not yet an actress. She doesn't know how to command the screen except by wearing a tight, low cut top. She imitates Allen in a couple of scenes, and that just looks weird and sad.
It doesn't help that her character is scripted as a doll who can't function without a ghost, or an elderly and less than awe-inspiring magician, telling her what to do at every turn.
She is approximately half Jackman's age, and she comes across as a very vapid screen presence in their scenes together.
Audience members not obsessed with breasts deserve better in their heroines, and Jackman deserves better, too -- a script that gives the heroine some intelligence and agency, and an actress who can convey those qualities.
Hugh Jackman is similarly cheated by the script. Allen apparently can't stand it that Jackman is so stunningly good looking and young, and so he gives Jackman nothing to say or do. Like Johansson, he is used merely for his good looks. This is a shame, because, as Jackman has shown in any number of productions, from "Oklahoma" to "X Men," he CAN act.
Here's the big plot twist -- Jackman, suave, charming English Lord, really is a killer. So, though the movie says it is all about letting someone else, other than Allen, get the girl, she doesn't get anyone. Jackman, the man she's been making love to, is a man who murdered a prostitute. Nice, Woody. Nice way to punish your heroine for being beyond your grasp.
In a passive aggressive touch, Allen deprives his heroine of his own presence, as well, killing off his character, the magician, leaving Scarlett Johansson all alone at the end of the film.
A final note: at my screening, not a single audience member laughed at any point during the film. Always a bad sign when a film is advertised as a comedy.


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