The Curse of the Jade Scorpion

Woody Allen’s The Curse of the Jade Scorpion (2001) is one of Allen’s stronger millennial efforts, though it is still a far cry from his masterpieces of the ‘70s and ‘80s, and, taken in context with the full filmography of Allen, is really a rather slight film. Having said all this, though, it has still has plenty of laughs, engaging characters, and the memorable quotes that make the Woody persona so enjoyable to watch.

Taking place in the 1940s, Woody plays CW Briggs, an insurance investigator who is the best of his business. Naturally, then, his boss Chris Magruder (Dan Ackroyd) has begun making changes at the office, including his recent hire of Betty Ann Fitzgerald (Helen Hunt). Briggs and Fitzgerald verbally spar with each other, and their insults provide much of the charm of the film. My favorite: Briggs telling Fitzgerald that "I took you to this smoky bar because I knew that you'd need less make-up."

In terms of the plot, Allen and Hunt’s characters are both hypnotized at a business party one evening, and their hypnotist uses the hypnotism word to force them to conduct his jewel thefts late at night. When they wake up in the morning, they have no memory of the theft. Particularly enjoyable is when Briggs must undertake a theft elsewhere while Laura Kensington (Charlize Theron), a classic femme fatale, is waiting on his bed. Allen’s bidding adieu to her is beyond hilarious.

Save for the critique of how a hatred of someone commonly holds an intense love for that person underneath all the anger, there’s not much depth here. Yet the film is enjoyable as a screwball comedy that harkens back to the classic verbal sparing of the 1930s and 1940s. If you’ve seen all the Woody Allen classics (Annie Hall, Love and Death, Husbands and Wives, Manhattan), you might check this out. It's not essential viewing, though.

The Curse of the Jade Scorpion: 6/10