Movies

From the start it's clear that Woody Allen's Scoop is pregnant with potential. It opens on a boat to the Underworld captained by a black-robed, scythe-carrying Death; two of its main characters are the ghost of a famous reporter and a third-rate magician. Consider the possibilities!

But Allen's return to comedy mode -- with a touch of fantasy and a little bit of Hitchcock thrown in -- is not all smooth sailing. Its potential is realized some of the time. Other times it falls flat. Allen has come up with a cute idea, but then walks rather than runs with it.

Like his last, over-praised Match Point, Scoop is set in London and co-stars Scarlett Johansson. But Death and a ghost and the Underworld aside, Scoop is a far sunnier film, even though murder is a theme throughout.

And this time Allen himself co-stars as that magician who becomes involved in a hunt for evidence that the fabulously wealthy son of a British lord is London's Tarot Card Killer. This Jack the Ripper-style murderer kills prostitutes and leaves a Tarot card as a calling card.

Joe Strombel (Ian McShane), a famous reporter, gets information that fingers the aristocratic Peter Lyman (Hugh Jackman) as the killer. But unfortunately, Strombel gets the news after he has died and is on that boat to the Underworld. But, being a top-notch reporter, he wants to get his scoop out to the world.

So he returns as a ghost to haunt the pretty Sondra Pransky (Johansson), a journalism student visiting London, and magician Sid Waterman (Allen). Sid calls himself Splendini in his act and becomes a reluctant accomplice to her investigative prying that leads her to meet Peter and worm her way into his confidence and heart.

But Peter is such a dashing figure, as played by Jackman, that Sondra soon comes to doubt he could kill anyone, let alone a string of prostitutes. But then, why has he hidden a deck of Tarot cards in a locked room? And what about all those unexplained absences? What was he up to then?

All this should make for a fun adventure, sort of like Allen's overlooked Manhattan Murder Mystery. But Scoop plays out in fits and starts.

Part of the problem is Allen himself. At 70 he has written a script that doesn't have the quick-wittedness of some of his earlier films, and his direction lacks the drive that would have Scoop roaring, rather than tiptoeing, to the finish line. Worse, he seems self-conscious when delivering his lines, which aren't all that funny to begin with. His Sid thinks he's a wit, but after a very short time he becomes an annoying, squeaking, whining fifth wheel to Johansson's Sondra as she tries to uncover clues about the serial killer.

Johansson beams as the naive Sondra, a wallflower who blossoms under Peter's spell. Yet Johansson lacks the snap demanded by the role, a style perfected by Rosalind Russell and Carole Lombard in the '30s and '40s. Even Diane Keaton or Mia Farrow, from Allen's earlier films, would have added a touch of dizziness that's missing here.

Nevertheless, Scoop is not a downer. Not when you have a nudgy ghost who keeps turning up on the sidelines to egg the characters on, plus clues that pop up every now and then, all overlaid with a light comic froth. It's amusing and pleasant, just right for a hot summer night. It's just that it had the potential to be so much more.

***

Scoop

Starring: Scarlett Johansson, Woody Allen, Hugh Jackman, Ian McShane.

Rated: PG-13, contains sexual situations, violence, adult themes.