Vicky Cristina Barcelona

Like most Allen pix, this one is refreshingly devoid of violence, graphic sex and special F/X. It may be the first PG-13 film to include a bisexual kissing scene -- tasteful to the brink of wholesome!

When great artists maintain their health and energy into their 70s, amazing things can happen -- and they're happening with Woody Allen. His new film, Vicky Cristina Barcelona, could not have been made by a young person.

Allen's new film is his most fun, seductive and creative work in years, full of good humor, exceptional performances and witty insights into the folly of romance.

Rich, complex, funny, erotic, compassionate and thoughtful, Vicky Cristina Barcelona may be the most fully realized film Woody Allen has made in two decades.

Vicky Cristina Barcelona possesses an energy, an intelligence and most of all, a passion that hasn't been seen from Allen in years.

Irrationally exuberant and sublimely sexy, Vicky Cristina Barcelona is the best “funny” Woody Allen movie in years, a sun-dappled sortie in Pedro Almodovar territory (with some early help from a Truffaut-esque narrator).

After Vicky Cristina Barcelona, you may feel you've learned something about the world. How lasting those epiphanies are depends on your constitution. But you don't have to go native to enjoy the trip.

The movie isn't really a comedy, though it has comic elements, but Allen has fun with twists on the Ugly American persona.

The film is funny, full of ideas and accessorized with great looking scenery, human and otherwise.

With his light touch and a keen eye -- and they're getting lighter and keener -- Allen has created a seemingly effortless but deeply meaningful film.

After years of diminishing returns, Woody Allen spectacularly returns to form with Vicky Cristina Barcelona, his funniest movie in years and arguably his sexiest.

There are no great choices in Vicky Cristina Barcelona, but the richness of Allen's storytelling makes up for his fatalistic view of relationships.

As cheap summer getaways go, a movie ticket that takes you into this sensual world of trysts and talks and glasses of wine, well, it's a bargain excursion.

As the movie rolls along, it becomes increasingly smart and entrancing. It satisfies on two levels -- intellectual and emotional -- but it's the ending that gets you.

Its appealing wisdom and emotional authenticity in its handling of affairs of the heart mark it as an offering by, for and about intelligent people.

Vicky Cristina Barcelona is as exhilarating, captivating and enjoyable as a summer romance in an exotic city.

In Allen's affectionate, enlightening and, best of all, blissfully entertaining Vicky Cristina Barcelona, he shows how much residue sexual desire or experience leaves in the brain and gut and heart

In addition to this spectacular cast, we get to enjoy a lot of Catalan art and architecture along the way, as well as -- holy jalapeno! -- a Johansson and Cruz makeout scene.

The sparkling dialogue, brisk pacing and potent cast make it Allen's most satisfying movie in a decade.

Though it's tempting to dismiss Vicky Cristina Barcelona as an indulgent male fantasy, with Bardem controlling the fates and libidos of three beautiful women, Allen clouds the situation with a persistent romantic pessimism.

Vicky Cristina Barcelona, Woody Allen's giddy romantic comedy, is the funniest film he has made since 1995's Mighty Aphrodite.

Brimming with beautiful people and beautiful scenery; there's a contagious enthusiasm as this movie whirs through the sights and sounds of Barcelona.

Woody Allen returns to what he does best -- dry, character-based comedy -- in this smart, unpredictable alternative to summer blockbusters.

This latest Allen outing has a restrained, even simplistic, structure that relies on the chemistry of its talented performers rather than melodramatic gimmicks.

Perhaps it was something in the Spanish water, but Woody Allen has produced his funniest movie in years in the seductively engaging Vicky Cristina Barcelona.

With his best film in years, Allen seems re-energized and curious about seeing and understanding love's ambiguities, as if he just got new lenses and can't wait to use them.

Vicky Cristina Barcelona is its own triangle, a movie from a director who's done mostly comedies and neo-thrillers but that is neither, simply an old man's mulling over love and passion and whether he or his characters make the right choice.

You can sense the comic potential, but Allen is more interested in commenting on the human condition than in drawing laughs. As a result, he has made his best film in years, after a decade-long drought that has sorely tested even his most loyal fans.

It's like a soft summer night spent wandering the streets of some enticing foreign city with your friends, then stopping at a sidewalk cafe to share lots of wine and spirited conversation.

The actors are attractive, the city is magnificent, the love scenes don't get all sweaty, and everybody finishes the summer a little wiser and with a lifetime of memories. What more could you ask?

Don't expect the world or a million laughs or even gorgeous Spanish scenery from this conventionally made picture. But don't underestimate its ability to charm either.

Another intriguing take on affairs of the heart from the master of the artform with some solid performances, most notably from Javier Bardem and Rebecca Hall.

I’ve never been a big fan of Cruz, but her work here is riveting. She’s sexy, dangerous and self-destructive and yet exudes a childlike vulnerability. She deserves an Oscar nomination.

Vicky Cristina Barcelona argues that when it comes to romance, the grass really is always greener on the other side. It's a rather melancholy, even tragic undertone to an otherwise breezy, funny and romantic charmer.

While far from transcendent, Vicky Cristina Barcelona manages to elegantly balance this duality, providing a setting so distinct from anything else in Allen's oeuvre that it creates the pleasurable illusion of something completely different.

Woody Allen goes latin (you heard me), and the romantic, richly comic result -- powered by a dream cast -- is his sexiest movie ever.

Who knew a Spanish accent could make Woody's familiar neurotic dialogue sound fresh?

Even though this is Johansson's third time around with Allen, it's her co-star, Rebecca Hall, who most fits the Allen character mold.

Vicky Christina Barcelona has a summery, loose appeal that makes you feel like nothing was preplanned, as if the camera is just following these people around some of Spain's prettiest places to see what they'll do next.

Vicky Christina Barcelona is a comedy, a good one, and also one of Allen's best-ever meditations on the many entanglements of love.

Vicky Christina Barcelona should be better than it is. But there's something intriguing going on here. It's a movie about the sacrifices that people make to be happy.

Allen opens up under the Spanish sun, using these creations for a funny, sexy romantic comedy focused on the miraculous chemical reactions that lead us in and out of love.

The writing is zippy, the story spins like a top, and Bardem turns out to be the wittiest of leading men, making Juan Antonio a seducer who is almost innocent in his games.

Allen seems genuinely to care for these characters, all of them, and the setting, and the story, and that sense of caring energizes the film when it occasionally sags.

One of the rare recent Allen efforts in which all the elements seem to be in good working order.

Vicky Cristina Barcelona isn't high-grade Allen, or even medium-grade Pedro Almodovar, his obvious influence in setting and tone. But it has Bardem offering a primer for any guy seeking action, and not a restraining order.

In too much of Vicky Cristina Barcelona Allen is unwilling to apply his wisdom, but every now and then he finds a terrific moment of visual depth.

Cinematographer Javier Aguirresarobe and his crew capture some beautiful images of the scenic Spanish locales. And Allen makes good use of appropriately subdued Spanish music.

As relationship comedies go, this one doesn't hold a candle to Annie Hall; its story line is featherweight, and when it's over Vicky Cristina Barcelona seems to instantly fade away.

There's a terrific movie buried in Woody Allen's tale of two American girls broadening their horizons in Barcelona, and every once in a while tantalizing glimpses penetrate the twee narration and mannered performances.

The flossy romantic dramedy marinates in silken elegance, a Euro loveliness, while tilling the same existential obsessions that have captivated Allen for his entire adult career.

Vicky Cristina Barcelona certainly isn't one of Allen's best, but it's a country mile ahead of the bevy of mediocrity that showed up from the late '90s until Match Point.

Grumbles about the director’s long-established weakness for ethnic stereotypes aside, both Bardem and Cruz energize the movie with their exuberance and rapid-fire banter.

There are two stormy performances from Javier Bardem and Penelope Cruz that elevate Allen's melancholy thoughts on love and relationships.

Vicky Cristina Barcleona is by no means a bad film, but it’s irrefutable evidence that Allen has aged -- or cloistered -- himself into irrelevance.

There's also an overbearing narrator who unnecessarily describes what each character is thinking, which often feels like stating the obvious.

One comes out of Barcelona wishing to have seen the same film directed by Pedro Almodovar or Francois Truffaut. They would have found the poetry where Allen seems satisfied with the travel poster.

Allen's laziness is startling, even in so mechanical a filmmaker. He uses a monotonous narrator to tell us what the characters think and do, though he then shows them performing the actions that have just been described.

Vicky Cristina Barcleona is basically the most arrogant film of the year, an occasion for Allen to feign interest in challenging heteronormic ideals when all he's doing is advancing a simplified view of female sexual agency.