I have just seen the newly released Woody Allen's To Rome with Love. Unfortunately I have to say that Allen is no longer at his best creative momentum.
The film drags on for too implausible stories even for those who admire the films of Allen.
So implausible they are that they lose the grace. I mean, they are not funny. You know that, in the end, everything will be all right.
Ok, it's a romantic comedy, light issues are welcome, but they don't need to be trivial, please!
The stories are also far from having a good and reasonable plot. It seems that he had some hurried ideas he would like to implement quickly. In the end he had no notion how to finish them well.
The scenes of a character on stage singing arias while bathing were bad taste and too far from funny. It was stupid!
The scene of a burglar in the bathroom of the hotel was conducted at the expense of a minimum of logic and plausibility of the script. The assailant appeared from nowhere!
The characters do not have psychological density, since they are constituted through stereotypes and caricatures of resources. Roberto Benigni last scene illustrates this. It was silly. Added nothing to the plot.
Jack and Monica, for example, are beings we have seen in many of Allen's previous works. As a result their speeches are predictable. You have heard them before. When one speaks you know what comes next. In fact all characters are Allen's former creatures. There's nothing new and surprising.
I still have Allen as a great director and screenwriter. I have an enormous empathy for him and most of his films. Some of his recent movies, however, are some degrees below the minimal expectation.
Allen gives us the impression that, he is on vacation whenever he produces outside the U.S. To Rome with Love in particular is full of a holiday mood. The result ? A stack of obviousness.
The film drags on for too implausible stories even for those who admire the films of Allen.
So implausible they are that they lose the grace. I mean, they are not funny. You know that, in the end, everything will be all right.
Ok, it's a romantic comedy, light issues are welcome, but they don't need to be trivial, please!
The stories are also far from having a good and reasonable plot. It seems that he had some hurried ideas he would like to implement quickly. In the end he had no notion how to finish them well.
The scenes of a character on stage singing arias while bathing were bad taste and too far from funny. It was stupid!
The scene of a burglar in the bathroom of the hotel was conducted at the expense of a minimum of logic and plausibility of the script. The assailant appeared from nowhere!
The characters do not have psychological density, since they are constituted through stereotypes and caricatures of resources. Roberto Benigni last scene illustrates this. It was silly. Added nothing to the plot.
Jack and Monica, for example, are beings we have seen in many of Allen's previous works. As a result their speeches are predictable. You have heard them before. When one speaks you know what comes next. In fact all characters are Allen's former creatures. There's nothing new and surprising.
By the time the film is in its middle, you are fed up with boring.
I still have Allen as a great director and screenwriter. I have an enormous empathy for him and most of his films. Some of his recent movies, however, are some degrees below the minimal expectation.
Allen gives us the impression that, he is on vacation whenever he produces outside the U.S. To Rome with Love in particular is full of a holiday mood. The result ? A stack of obviousness.
