soyarra

This film has a really spectacular supporting cast and what would have been a great premise IF it had been built around a better actor. I doubt even readers of the comic imagined the weedy, sunken-chested, round-shouldered, soprano-voiced Michael Cera as Scott (except possibly in their nightmares).

Honestly, what was Edgar Wright thinking? Cera is the vacuous center around which this film careens and I don't think that was the intention. He's eclipsed by Kieran Culkin (who obviously intends to be Robert Downey Jr.'s successor in acerbically droll performances), Anna Kendrick and Mary Elizabeth Winstead (who looks as if she could crush Cera). A shame, because with a strong lead this could have been a great film, one which actually made money.

And how many actors can he get to stand in for his own neurotic, compulsive uber-New Yorker persona? In this film Woody is played by Will Ferrell in what is mercifully less a direct impersonation than the one Kenneth Branagh did in "Celebrity." It's an annoyingly repetitive story now: nebbishy, neurotic man with a wife or girlfriend falls madly in love with a shiksa queen upon which he projects all manner of perfection. Everyone lives in perfect gigantic apartments in great Manhattan neighborhoods, everyone constantly patronizes expensive, exclusive restaurants during which all the characters relate fascinating anecdotes and discuss arcane philosophy, there is always a trip to the Hamptons during which the nebbishy main character spazzes out about sand and physical exertion and possible exposure to diseases, and then of course, said main character feels guilty about his lust for the shiksa queen but pursues her anyway, sometimes succeeding, sometimes failing, etc.

This a tired formula, and proof that Allen isn't really a great film artist at all. He just seems like a dirty old man with the libido and emotions of a 20-year-old who is intent upon telling the same boring old stories again and again.

I actually thought this film might not be half bad, but I had to switch it off after 30 minutes. What an incredibly mannered, artificial performance by Tom Hanks! I didn't think it was possible given that he's a very natural, usually graceful actor, but he was entirely unconvincing as Charlie Wilson. Even Julia Roberts was better in her miscast role as a wealthy Texas dowager. Incredible.

As for Aaron Sorkin's screenplay - a bunch of facile quips do not make for a profound exploration of the initial US involvement in Afghanistan. I know he was trying to make some sort of point here, but this was not the way to do it. I mean, this is the guy who created and wrote most of The West Wing, and who wrote A Few Good Men, for God's sake.