Review: No sting to 'Jade Scorpion'

By Paul Tatara
CNN Reviewer

(CNN) -- Woody Allen has been quoted as saying that his script for "The Curse of the Jade Scorpion," a rather distressingly routine film noir pastiche, originated as "just a funny premise, and the rest is whatever spun out of that."

And that's exactly what's wrong with it. There used to be considerable focus and magnetism to Allen's comic perceptions, a unique, overriding sense of purpose. But most of his recent films reveal an increasingly uninterested artist riffing on flimsy ideas.

"The Curse of the Jade Scorpion" is another New York period piece, this one set in 1940. Allen is C.W. Briggs, a womanizing insurance investigator. The messy office where Briggs works is full of veteran detectives who like to do things their own way, but C.W.'s legendary technique is being threatened by a recently hired efficiency expert named Betty Ann Fitzgerald (Helen Hunt).

Betty Ann despises C.W. He's whiny (of course), and she's openly repulsed by his incessant pursuit of sexy young women. Given that Allen now looks like a scrawny, 65-year old man -- because that's exactly what he is -- you're liable to agree with her.

It seems that Allen now makes pictures out of habit, rather than desire or ambition, and the results often feel more like rough drafts than finished products. Laugh-wise, "The Curse of the Jade Scorpion" falls somewhere in the middle of what can accurately be described as his "mediocre period." It's not a complete, head-scratching washout, like "Alice" (1990) or "Celebrity" (1998). But there's hardly any steam to the narrative, and the insult-laden dialogue often sounds like wham-bam sitcom banter.

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Hunt (who looks terrific in her tight skirts and cashmere sweaters) does what she can with a badly underwritten character. Betty Ann mostly wishes out loud that C.W. would choke to death, or have a coronary; C.W. counter- strikes with snide remarks about her theoretical unattractiveness. It seems that Allen is shooting for a playful "His Girl Friday" (1940) with the zingers. Regrettably, they often land with a thud, and their repetition gets monotonous.

A spell is cast

One night, while the gang from the office celebrates a birthday at the Rainbow Room, a performing hypnotist (David Ogden Stiers) puts C.W. and Betty Ann under a spell. He convinces them, to the obvious amusement of their friends, that they're madly in love. When they're awakened, they remember nothing of the trance. But the crafty hypnotist later telephones C.W. at his home, re-introduces the spell, and has C.W. unwittingly steal jewels from one of the agency's wealthy clients.

Allen's sleep-walking compliance with Stiers' commands is pretty amusing, and a few of the one-liners hit their marks ... which is to be expected when the script is written by one of the sharper comic minds of the past 30 years. But the narrative roams with puzzling imprecision. It's hard to even say what the movie is supposed to be about.

For a while, you're focused on Betty Ann's clandestine affair with her stuffy boss (Dan Aykroyd, doing his generic "plump guy in a business suit" routine). Then C.W. thinks that Betty Ann has stolen the missing jewels. Then Betty Ann starts to suspect C.W.

Meanwhile, C.W. is being lustfully pursued by Laura Kensington (Charlize Theron), an over-sexed society girl with time and money to kill. Luckily, audiences have been primed for such colossal improbabilities by "Planet of the Apes."

Theron's subplot accomplishes nothing at all, aside from giving you another chance to ogle Theron, and the "payoff" to all those threads is hardly what you would call a surprise (Anyone want to guess if C.W. and Betty Ann hate each other when it's all over?)

Ho-hum again

Allen has made yet another film that isn't bad enough to hate, but barely good enough to remember. He and his fans would be better off if he'd sit back for a couple of years, then start filming when he has a multidimensional idea, even a relatively lightweight one -- "Zelig" (1983) comes to mind -- that's worthy of his abilities.

"The Curse of the Jade Scorpion" is a tap on the nose from a director who used to care enough to throw haymakers. And viewers need to be smacked out of their stupor more than ever.

You'd have to have an exceptionally sensitive constitution to be offended by "The Curse of the Jade Scorpion." That's part of the problem. Theron discusses sex a bit, but that's about it. Take note of the extraordinary sets, by Allen's longtime production designer, Santo Loquasto. He's one of the best in the business. Rated PG-13.