Wonderful character development!

Sadly Over-hyped

Perfect cast and a good story

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

Woody Allen assembled a fine cast for this comedy-caper that he wrote, directed and starred in. "The Curse of the Jade Scorpion" is fair adult comedy. Most of the adult theme is by innuendo, typical of the films of the mid-20th century. The time and place for this story is 1940 New York. The adult here is mostly in fast dialog riddled with insults, and references that most in a younger audience wouldn't understand.The plot is a creative one that uses a new twist to some old-fashioned crime capers. In many of Allen's films in which he stars, his usual whining character quickly wears thin with me. In this film, it isn't as much complaining as it is tongue-twisted and stumbling for words or the next line. That's a little easier to take.This is worth a few chuckles but it's not a special film to go out of one's way to watch or buy.

The other one being Scoop, though that still had its fair share of flaws. The Curse of the Jade Scorpion has often been cited as one of Allen's worst(Allen even saying it being his worst) and while I would have said that on first viewing on re-watch definitely not. The ending is over too soon and is a cop-out, a lot of chemistry between the actors is quite bland- non existent between Hunt and Aykroyd- and Dan Aykroyd is completely wasted in an underwritten role. However, The Curse of the Jade Scorpion is gorgeously filmed and the costumes and scenery are equally beautiful, one of Allen's better-looking later films. The upbeat and jazzy soundtrack matches the light bouncy mood of the film really well, while the script is very funny and smart with some intelligent touches and Allen's unmistakable style all over it and the story(while meandering towards the end) endears in its light-hearted approach, isn't too dull and doesn't waste its creative premise. The characters are not as relatable or as developed as other Allen films but other than Aykroyd's and to a lesser extent Charlize Theron's they do engage at least and like the script how they're written is distinctive of Woody Allen. Allen's direction hardly flounders and while he is in a way too old for his role he still gives a good account of himself, being purposefully neurotic, touchingly dithery and funny in a way that only he can be. Helen Hunt is wonderful, David Ogden Stiers plays with much lively gusto(if slightly hammy compared to everyone else but this is a case of that not being too much of a bad thing) and Elizabeth Berkley as well as looking beautiful is also surprisingly good. Like Aykroyd, Charlize Theron's character is very underwritten but her witty lines and her being at her sexiest more than compensate and she manages to be memorable at least. Overall, a decent film that could have been stronger but much better than its critical reputation and on re-watch. It's no Annie Hall, Crimes and Misdemeanours, Manhattan, Hannah and Her Sisters, Husbands and Wives or The Purple Rose of Cairo and it's not as ground-breaking as Zelig. But it is a long way from Allen's worst, What's Up Tiger Lily, Celebrity, To Rome With Love and Cassandra's Dream are worse, and panned films that I have yet to watch(re-watch in the cases of Shadows and Fog, September and Anything Else, all of which on first viewing didn't impress me) are likely to be even worse than them. 7/10 Bethany Cox

Let me review this review by saying that I'm not a fan of Woody Allen's jobs, mainly because this is his first that I watch. "The Curse of the Jade Scorpion" tells a story filled with fun, irony and intelligence, delivering an original film that makes you quietly laugh. Miss Fitzgerald and CW Briggs work together in an insurance company and happen to hate each other, but doe to an hypnosis made by a thief, they have to get along to clean some things up. They spend most of the time arguing, and Allen makes it in a way that spectator doesn't get tired, considering they have funny ironic lines. The only thing that I disliked was the acting of Helen Hunt and Dan Aykroyd; don't get me wrong, I'm not stating they are bad actors, but in some scenes they are simply unconvincing, even overacting sometimes. In the end, it's a great movie, and happens to be one of those few cases in which a remake would be really useful. Recommended, and from now on I'll try to see other Allen's works.

Woody Allen's "The Curse of the Jade Scorpion" is set in 1940 and combines and pays homage to two film genres popular during the forties, screwball comedy and film noir, even though during that decade those two genres were not generally regarded as having much in common with one another. It shares with film noir the figure of the dedicated, trenchcoat-wearing lone criminal investigator and with screwball comedy not only an absurd and convoluted plot but also the device of two characters who, on the surface, hate (or at least dislike) one another but who are secretly in love. In the forties those characters were often a divorced or separated couple who inevitably ended by getting back together, like Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell in "His Girl Friday."Here the ill-matched couple are C.W. Briggs, an insurance investigator, and Betty Ann Fitzgerald, an efficiency expert working for the same company. Although Briggs has had a good deal of success in uncovering insurance frauds and recovering stolen goods, due mainly to his ability to think like a criminal and his numerous underworld connections, he does not impress Betty Ann who regards his methods as outdated and Briggs himself as a male chauvinist pig (to use a more modern expression not actually in use in the forties). Unfortunately for Briggs, Betty Ann has the ear of his boss, Chris Magruder, with whom she is secretly having an affair. The plot is not only far-fetched but also fairly complex, but the central idea is that Briggs and Betty Ann are hypnotised by a crooked stage magician into stealing jewels, that neither of them have any memory of what they have done under hypnosis, and that Briggs is then assigned by Magruder to investigate these crimes. The film had a production budget of $26 million, making it Allen's most expensive film to date, even though that figure is peanuts compared to today's average Hollywood blockbusters, or even to the Hollywood blockbusters of 2001. It fared poorly at the box office and received a mixed reception from the critics. For at least the last twenty years the standard critical idée recue about Woody Allen has been to say "He's not as funny as he used to be", but in the case of "The Curse of the Jade Scorpion" critics of this type have had an unexpected ally, Woody himself, who has said that it is perhaps his worst movie. He stated that it was only the high cost of the film, caused largely by its period setting and its elaborate sets, which prevented him from going back and reshooting the whole thing from scratch as he famously (or notoriously) did with "September". My initial reaction was to say that this is yet more evidence that great artists are not always great critics, especially where their own work is concerned. Yet in one respect I think that Allen was right. His main concern was that he had been wrong to cast himself as Briggs, and, in all honesty, I am compelled to agree with him on this point. To start with, it was a mistake to make Briggs so much older than Betty Ann. (Allen is 28 years older than his leading lady Helen Hunt). Addressed to a man of her own age, Betty Ann's sharp put-downs would be pertinent and to the point; addressed to a man old enough to be her father they seem arrogant, impertinent and evidence of a lack of respect. More importantly, Briggs is totally different from the sort of neurotic, angst-ridden intellectual whom we have come to regard as the typical Woody Allen character. This is a role- a cynical, wisecracking private eye, irresistible to women even if they dislike what he stands for- which seems to demand a cross between Humphrey Bogart and Cary Grant, and I don't think Woody really fits that particular bill. And yet, despite this miscasting, I cannot agree with Woody that this is his worst movie. "The Curse of the Jade Scorpion" may lack the depth and significance of his truly great films like "Crimes and Misdemeanors", "Annie Hall" or "Manhattan", but it has a genuinely witty script, based around the brilliant comic idea of a detective investigating a series of crimes which, unknown to him, he has committed himself. Allen himself may be miscast, but this cannot be said of the rest of the cast, especially Hunt who makes the most of her splendidly bitchy part, the sort of roles which in the thirties or forties would have been played by Russell or Katharine Hepburn. All the great films noirs, and most of the great original screwball comedies ("Nothing Sacred" being a rare exception), were shot in black- and-white. No doubt Allen considered doing the same with this film, as he had done with "Manhattan", but in the end made it in colour, but in colours which Roger Ebert described as "burnished and aged", with a palette dominated (as in some of his other films, such as "Alice") by browns, yellows and oranges. This palette combines with the elaborate period sets to give this film a highly distinctive look, one which recalls the films of the forties without actually copying them. Charlize Theron appears in a role which adds little to the plot but which adds greatly to the mood by recalling the femmes fatales of noir; if Hunt is the new Russell or Hepburn, Theron takes on the role of the new Lizabeth Scott or Gloria Grahame. Is this really your worst movie, Woody? In my view it's nothing of the sort- in fact, it's a positively good one!. You will have to try very hard if you want to come up with something as awful as "September". Even in its reshot version that must count as your worst movie. 7/10