Vicky Cristinia Barcelona

Thankfully Woody Allen no longer appears in his own films, with touristic footage of European cities filling in for some of his more annoying shtick, but there is still a shallow, nihilistic worldview at work in his films, so when they’re not funny they’re pretty bleak, in a way that is assumed not earned. So everything and everyone is pretty and well-heeled, if ultimately emptied of significance. He doesn’t abuse Scarlett Johansson as badly as in recent films, but still makes her into a pretentious bubblehead. Luckily the other three principals are not so easily moved around like straw people. Javier Bardem and Penelope Cruz are pretty hilarious as the hot-blooded artist couple, with whom the post-graduate Americans, Vicky (an effective Rebecca Hall) and Cristina, fall in during their hot Mediterranean summer in Barcelona. There’s an intrusive narration that one wants to take as ironic, but no, really, it’s just that flatfooted -- I wonder if Woody could have sold it in his own voice? In no way a hardship to watch, this film was in no way moving or illuminating. (2008, dvd, n.) *6* (MC-70.)