The curse of the jade scorpion

Curse of the Jade Scorpion is a 2001 crime-comedy film written, directed by, and starring Woody Allen. The cast also includes Helen Hunt, Charlize Theron, Dan Aykroyd, Elizabeth Berkley, Wallace Shawn, and David Ogden Stiers. The plot concerns an insurance investigator and a business efficiency expert, who are hypnotized in a bar by a hypnotist to steal jewelry.

Plot

C.W. Briggs (Woody Allen) is a clumsy but effective insurance investigator who is at odds with the new office adviser Betty Ann (Helen Hunt). One night, when out partying with several friends to get to know each other better, they are hypnotized at a bar show by the magician Voltan (David Ogden Styers) for fun, but the magician has other plans: by having Briggs under his power, Voltan orders him to rob a safe, a case that C.W.'s insurance company will begin to investigate. Briggs.

With a late-night phone call hypnotizing them at the mention of a code word, security expert, investigator, and special agent C.W. Briggs robs the mansions that were under the protection of the insurance company, which hires an office of private investigators to help them solve the case. They suspect C.W. Briggs, who escapes to try to solve the case on his behalf.

C.W. he has no memory of these crimes once he wakes up, but he is determined to solve them. He begins to investigate Betty Ann for her suspicious behavior related to her affair with her boss Chris and breaks into her house. There he witnesses Chris tell Betty Ann that he has reconciled with her wife and that he is not going to divorce her. As he leaves, Betty Ann gets drunk in a fit of depression and tries to jump out of the window to commit suicide. C.W. he stops her and spends the night with her to prevent him from trying again.

Finally, the investigations begin to gather evidence pointing to investigator C.W. as the perpetrator of the robberies, which leads to his arrest. C.W. manages to escape to Betty Ann's house, where she reluctantly hides him. Voltan calls Betty Ann on the phone, hypnotizes her using her activation word to put her in a hypnotic state and rob jewelry from another house. C.W. he realizes what happened and returns to Betty Ann's apartment, discovers that she has been hypnotized again and finds her handing over the jewels to Voltan still under her hypnotic trance. Voltan discovers C.W. hiding and threatens to kill him with a gun. Voltan tries to escape from her, but the police catch him, the still mesmerized Betty Ann expresses her love for C.W., who takes advantage of her state to passionately kiss her before erasing her memories of the event. C.W. he announces that he is resigning from the insurance company and is considered a hero by the rest of the staff for solving the case. C.W. He proposes to Betty Ann, confesses his love for her and tries to convince her that she loves him too.

Cast

• Woody Allen as C.W. Briggs.
• Helen Hunt as Betty Ann Fitzgerald.
• Charlize Theron as Laura Kensington.
• Dan Aykroyd as Chris Magruder.
• Wallace Shawn like George Bond.
• David Ogden Stiers like Voltan.
• Elizabeth Berkley like Jill.
• Brian Markinson as Alvin «Al».
• Peter Gerety like Ned.
• John Schuck like Mize.
• Kaili Vernoff as Rosie.

Critical reception

The film received mixed reviews from critics. On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 45%, based on 122 reviews, with the site's critical consensus being: "The writing of Scorpion is not as sharp as previous Woody Allen films, as most of the jokes fall flat." Metacritic gives the film an average score of 52 out of 100, based on 31 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".

Allen himself claimed to be in relative agreement with some critics in an interview given for the book Conversations with Woody Allen, remarking that it is perhaps his worst film. Allen said that he felt he had let the rest of the cast down by casting himself as the lead. He explained that part of the problem was the time the film was set in and the expense of building the sets, which made it too expensive to go back and reshoot anything. Allen reshot the entirety of his 1987 drama September after he felt he was badly cast.

With its production budget of $33 million, it is Allen's most expensive film. Relative to most of his more successful productions, the film did poorly in American theaters with ticket sales of more than $7 million. Its worldwide gross was $18.9 million. However, years after its release, it began to enjoy a new generation of comic cult status recognition. Roger Ebert wrote: "There are pleasures in the film that have little to do with the story. Its appearance is mysterious, a tribute to the black and white era, shot in color, and yet the colors appear burnished and aged. No color noir movies were shot in the 1940s, but if they had been, they would have looked like this, and a great deal of attention is paid to the women played by Hunt, Berkley, and Theron, who don't look as much like the women in the classic film noir like the women in film noir posters - their costumes and styles elevate them into archetypes. Hunt in particular enjoys playing a playful lady who owes something, perhaps, to Rosalind Russell in His Girl Friday".

Tribute

French singer-songwriter Dimie Cat pays homage to the film in the song "Woody Woody" from her album ZigZag.