'You Will Meet A Tall Dark Stranger'

'You Will Meet A Tall Dark Stranger' (R) (2 stars)

Writer and Director: Woody Allen
Starring: Naomi Watts, Gemma Jones, Anthony Hopkins, Josh Brolin, Lucy Punch, Freida Pinto, Antonio Banderas, Pauline Collins, Ewen Bremmer

Woody Allen makes a lot of movies and it seems like he has a movie come out once every year. Lately most of these movies have been fairly entertaining but kind of forgettable and very light. It is becoming like fast food where it goes by fast but you don't remember it later. Woody Allen has made some incredible and classic comedies and dramas. Movies like "Manhattan", "Match Point", "Hannah and Her Sisters", Crimes and Misdemeanors" and my two favorites "Annie Hall" and "Broadway Danny Rose". Those are some awesome movies and I guess if we get those I can tolerate Allen taking a day off so to speak. "You Will Meet A Tall Dark Stranger" is one of those light as air, forgettable movies that is entertaining but not really substantial. Now with "Match Point" being made recently and being a tight and outstanding masterpiece, I don't mind these side trips. You just won't care too much about the characters here or remember it two days from now.

Woody's latest is again filmed in England as most of his latest have been filmed there. He likes how the film crews work there and he feels freer to work in London.
The movie juggles a bunch of characters that are all kind of tied together. There is a mother played by Gemma Jones whose husband, Anthony Hopkins, leaves her for a younger woman played by Lucy Punch (Dinner for Schmucks). The mother has a daughter, Naomi Watts, whose husband is a struggling writer and he is played by Josh Brolin. He spots a woman in the apartment building across the street that he can't keep his eyes off of. She is played by Freida Pinto from "Slumdog Millionaire" and she is engaged to be married. The mother usually comes over and interferes in her daughter's marriage with the writer and the mother is seeing a psychic. The Watts character works for an art dealer as an assistant. Of course with her marriage starting to crumble she starts to really grow attracted to the art dealer and it also helps that he is played by Antonio Banderas.

We follow all these characters and I was intrigued by what was going to happen but it doesn't add to anything worth while. I feel that the movie just ends without coming to anything meaningful even in a comedic way. I did like a side story dealing with the Brolin character trying to come up with a book and using his friend in a shameless way. In all Woody Allen movies the characters share that Woody Allen singular voice style. Like David Mamet you know when you are hearing Woody Allen dialogue and I like that. Freida Pinto looks beautiful, Lucy Punch is a very good comic actress and great here. All the actors are very good but their roles here won't be in bold letters when their resumes are updated. It will give Pinto and Punch many more opportunities to be in big movies. It is not a bad movie and I have liked some of Allen's small, light comedies. Movies like "Manhattan Murder Mystery and his funniest movie "Broadway Danny Rose" are small classics. I know Allen has a few great movies left in him and they will probably be made. Just when Clint Eastwood makes great film after great film lately you expect Allen to do it also. I think he needs to take a few years off and write a big, old classic Woody Allen movie, just one.