thomas4cinema

Vicky and Cristina, two well-off US girlies, decide to spend the Summer in Barcelona. When they meet an artist who looks like Javier Bardem, both have sex with him, and one of them gets married, but not with the painter. Then they fly home again. During this adventure, they talk a lot about their adventure, which consists of being in Barcelona and having sex with an artist who looks like Javier Bardem.
It is not very surprising that a film with Scarlett Johansson is not good, and that she cannot act her way out of her pants. The terrible thing is: even Javier Bardem, who looks like Javier Bardem, talks as if the sheer presence of Scarlett Johansson depletes him of all actor skills he may have acquired during his Almodovar years. What is left is his ability to speak the most ludicrous script sentences in a most profoundly non-interesting manner. The only reason for the film’s existence must be the director’s wish to have a chance to direct some scene involving Penelope Cruz, hopefully naked and wild. This did not work out, Ms Cruz is more fully dressed than in most other films of her that I have seen. Even though she is completely detached from the rest of the film, and her contempt for the other characters extends way beyond the screen, feels as if it generously is extended to most of the other actors, she still is the only redeeming feature the film has. She will safeguard its immortality, because hopefully someone will create a 6-minute version with all her scenes and upload it to YouTube. This person shall be praised, while Allen shall be damned and banned for life from putting his increasingly demented old man’s fantasies on film. (Another extra life-tim ban he shall receive for the voice-over narration, which is a disgrace to the history of cinematic narrative.) The sheer amount of American intellectual’s cliches about Europe processed within the 90-something minutes of the movie are enough to drown the whole of European history in a sea of vomit.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0497465/