Movies
Weekend Box Office
Film Awards & Top 10s By Year
All-Time High Scores
All-Time Low Scores
Wide Releases
Now In Theaters
76
(500) Days of Summer
49
2012
60
9
17
All About Steve
37
Amelia
53
Astro Boy
70
Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans
52
Blind Side
47
Box, The
61
Capitalism: A Love Story
55
Christmas Carol, A
43
Cirque du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant
66
Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs
23
Couples Retreat
39
Fame
30
Final Destination, The
34
Fourth Kind, The
41
G-Force
46
Halloween II
73
Hangover, The
78
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
66
Informant!, The
69
Inglourious Basterds
58
Invention of Lying, The
47
Jennifer's Body
66
Julie & Julia
34
Law Abiding Citizen
54
Men Who Stare At Goats, The
67
Michael Jackson's This Is It
28
Pandorum
58
Pirate Radio
39
Planet 51
30
Saw VI
53
Shorts
33
Stepfather, The
45
Surrogates
46
Twilight Saga: New Moon, The
71
Where the Wild Things Are
67
Whip It
28
Whiteout
73
Zombieland
Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
Limited Releases
Now In Theaters
58
(Untitled)
96
35 Shots of Rum
56
Adam
39
Adventures of Power
66
Afterschool
73
Amreeka
49
Antichrist
76
Baader Meinhof Complex, The
86
Beaches of Agnes, The
71
Big Fan
65
Black Dynamite
76
Bliss
26
Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day, The
44
Brief Interviews with Hideous Men
81
Bright Star
76
Broken Embraces
70
Bronson
62
Cloud 9
65
Coco Before Chanel
69
Cold Souls
60
Collapse
82
Cove, The
75
Crude
82
Damned United, The
53
Dare
50
Defamation
67
Departures
70
Earth Days
85
Education, An
55
Endgame
88
Fantastic Mr. Fox
31
Fix
49
Food Beware: The French Organic Revolution
80
Food, Inc.
xx
From Mexico with Love
28
Gentlemen Broncos
72
Good Hair
89
Goodbye Solo
63
Horse Boy, The
74
House of the Devil, The
xx
How to Seduce Difficult Women
26
I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell
70
It Might Get Loud
46
Killing Kasztner
43
Little Traitor, The
34
Looking for Palladin
80
Lorna's Silence
46
Love Hurts
84
Maid, The
45
Mammoth
75
Messenger, The
55
Missing Person, The
59
More Than a Game
34
Motherhood
62
My One and Only
48
New York, I Love You
66
No Impact Man
26
Oh My God
68
Paranormal Activity
68
Paris
79
Precious: Based on the Novel by Sapphire
73
Red Cliff
69
September Issue, The
79
Serious Man, A
65
Skin
41
Splinterheads
42
Staten Island
50
Stoning of Soraya M., The
58
Storm
82
Sun, The
49
Ten9Eight: Shoot for the Moon
73
That Evening Sun
61
Trucker
49
Turning Green
83
U2 3D
45
Uncertainty
67
Visual Acoustics
32
War on Kids
67
Way We Get By, The
65
Wedding Song, The
xx
White on Rice
59
William Kunstler: Disturbing the Universe
74
Woman in Berlin, A
43
Women in Trouble
69
Yoo-Hoo, Mrs. Goldberg
Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
Curse of the Jade Scorpion, The
EMAILPRINTDreamWorks Distribution L.L.C.
Mixed or average reviews
Based on 31 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 8 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie >
Movie Info
Genre(s): Romance
Written by: Woody Allen
Directed by: Woody Allen
Release Date:
Theatrical: August 24, 2001
DVD: January 29, 2002
Running Time: 108 minutes, Color
Origin: Germany / USA
Summary
RATING: PG-13 for some sexual content
Starring Woody Allen, Dan Aykroyd, Elizabeth Berkley, Helen Hunt, Brian Markinson, David Ogden Stiers, and Charlize Theron
Woody Allen's latest crime caper stars Allen as crackerjack insurance investigator CW Briggs. Briggs might be forced to relinquish bragging rights to being the best in the business when he falls under the spell of a crook -- and a beautiful colleague -- in his most baffling case to date, and finds that he is the one left clueless. (DreamWorks SKG)
Also On Metacritic
FILM: Anything Else Cassandra's Dream Celebrity Crimes and Misdemeanors Deconstructing Harry Hannah and Her Sisters Hollywood Ending Manhattan Match Point Melinda and Melinda Mighty Aphrodite Scoop Small Time Crooks Sweet and Lowdown
Also On The Web: Internet Movie Database View The Trailer Official Studio Site
What The Critics Said
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington
Seemingly a simple comedy, it actually -- like all Allen's "simple" comedies -- has a lot to say. Will the audience listen or just dismiss it as minor, out-of-date Woody? If they do, it's their loss.
Read Full Review >Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum
One thing I especially like about it, apart from the flavorsome 40s decor in color, is that it's silly in much the same way that many small 40s comedies were.
Read Full Review >Rolling Stone Peter Travers
It's a real charmer from a director who feels that a knockabout romantic farce doesn't have to be mindless -- take that, "America's Sweethearts."
Read Full Review >Mr. Showbiz Cody Clark
Allen's good with the material, but Hunt sparkles, repeatedly razoring her diminutive antagonist to shreds.
New Times (L.A.) Bill Gallo
A thoroughly likable, if familiar, Woody Allen comedy -- not the most original or revealing tintype in the director's gallery, perhaps, but blessedly free of the self-conscious hand-wringing and tortured navel-gazing that impede the former Mr. Konigsberg's more sluggish efforts.
Read Full Review >Miami Herald Connie Ogle
Hardly the first of Woody Allen's love letters to the good old days, but it's a high-spirited, entertaining one, falling along the same lines as "Radio Days."
Read Full Review >Boston Globe Jay Carr
There's nothing major here, certainly nothing on the order of my favorite among Allen's retro workouts of the past decade, ''Bullets Over Broadway.'' But it's entertaining all the same.
Variety Robert Koehler
Certainly not a piffle, nor an impressive departure into a new filmmaking realm, Allen's second film in a row about crooks ranks in the middle range of his work.
Read Full Review >USA Today Susan Wloszczyna
Since a goodly portion of Jade is given over to the barbed banter lobbed by Allen and a solid Helen Hunt (in Stanwyck mode as a peevish efficiency expert who challenges his façade of male superiority), Woody the wordsmith is in full evidence, too.
Read Full Review >Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert
Never quite lifts off. The elements are here, but not the magic.
Read Full Review >The New York Times Dana Stevens
A loose- jointed, not especially memorable comic caper with some lovely moments of humorous invention, many patches of clumsy writing and a few game performances.
Read Full Review >New York Magazine Peter Rainer
The problem is that Allen is getting a bit long in the tooth to be playing a romancer-rescuer, and since he and Helen Hunt have a rather frigid actorly rapport, we have plenty of time to notice the awkward, and barely acknowledged, disparity in their ages.
Read Full Review >TV Guide Staff (Not credited)
This charming and funny film may be one of the last of a rare genre deservedly named after a person -- the Woody Allen movie.
Read Full Review >Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan
It would be dishonest to deny that Jade Scorpion has amusing moments, but it never gets better than that and often settles for less.
Read Full Review >Portland Oregonian Barry Johnson
This one is for Woody fans, and maybe Woody fans only.
Read Full Review >Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold
So lame and Woody himself seems so worn down and the humor is such a pale shadow of the former Allen brilliance that -- despite a few chuckles here and there -- it's a considerable disappointment.
Read Full Review >Washington Post Stephen Hunter
This mid-level, pretty-but-not-hugely-funny Allen film slips into the top spot by regretful default. I enjoyed every single second of it, a little bit.
Read Full Review >New York Daily News Jami Bernard
Lightweight, inoffensive fare, as bland as a sleepwalker under a hypnotist's spell.
Read Full Review >Entertainment Weekly Staff (Not credited)
It feels wrong; the entire machinery of the movie seems to be rotating around Woody Allen's vanity. He remains a canny (if, in this case, hollow) film craftsman, but by now we know him far too well to be asked to find him adorable.
Read Full Review >San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle
It's middling Allen, which means that fans won't be sorry to see it, while everyone else can wait until the next "Bullets Over Broadway."
Read Full Review >Salon.com Charles Taylor
Nothing but plot and production values, and there's barely a laugh in it that isn't quashed.
Read Full Review >Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt
There are lots of plot twists and romantic angles. What's lacking is laughs.
Read Full Review >Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey
It's not fresh and irreverent, qualities we admire in Allen. It is recycled and irrelevant.
Read Full Review >Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern
The movie isn't terrible -- a few clever notions snap to life and pay off, at least modestly -- but it's dispirited and eventually dispiriting, a force-fed farce that falls far short of fascination.
Washington Post Desson Thomson
Despite an appealing, even ingenious premise, "Scorpion" is another quippy but uninspired comedy.
Read Full Review >Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov
Scorpion fails to connect on anything but the most basic comic level. Despite Allen's usual excellent direction, it all plays like a TV-movie version of something else, Allen-lite.
Read Full Review >Slate David Edelstein
It's evidently important to Allen to work, work, work, but he's starting to make his movies by rote instead of passion. Could he handle -- psychologically -- a year or two off? Could he afford -- creatively -- to keep grinding them out?
Read Full Review >Village Voice Amy Taubin
Although there's no evidence of sexual chemistry on the screen, the stars share a certain physical defensiveness that occasionally makes them seem simpatico; most of the time, however, they just look bored to death.
Read Full Review >Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow
The problem with Allen's latest, The Curse of the Jade Scorpion, is "Not enough Double Indemnity."
Read Full Review >LA Weekly Manohla Dargis
Achieves a generic period look, but there's nothing lived-in about its rooms, nothing persuasive or necessary about its time and place -- there's no longer even a movie fan's nostalgia to give it some spark, or a reason for being.
Read Full Review >What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this movie is 6.5 (out of 10) based on 8 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
Brawny Lad gave it an 8:
A fun spin on Bob Hope films of the 40s. Interesting to see how widely the professional critics ranged on this! Often directly contradicting each other on the particulars. Such as whether or not there was on-screen chemistry between Allen and Hunt. I think that she wasn't, by nature, zany enough for the part.
Yoon C. gave it a 7:
Woody Allen sleepwalks both as character and director in this movie. It's Allen directing by the numbers; more an exercise than art. But, the formula works, the actors seem to having fun, and if you like Allen's persona, it's just endearing enough to recommend.
Gman The Cultural Barbarian gave it a 0:
Awful. just plain awful.
Bob S. gave it a 7:
I laughed (woody always makes me laugh). My wife stayed awake. Can't ask for much more.
Andy S. gave it a 5:
For many years, every time Bob Dylan released a new album, fans and critics would repeat a familiar lament: "It's no Blood on the Tracks." And it was true; Dylan went more than two decades between great albums, and it seemed like his talent was mostly tapped out. But in recent years, he's had something a renaissance, writing and recording music which, if not quite up to his old standards of depth and consistency, will stand the test of time. Since "Hannah and Her Sisters" in 1986, Woody Allen has not made a great comedy. He's made a few good ones, (e.g., "Bullets Over Broadway," his critical "Blood on the Tracks," the recent "Sweet and Low Down," etc.), some not good ones, and many very slight, very medicre ones, such as "Jade Scorpion." The problem as I see it is three-fold: (1) he hasn't been able to write consistently for voices other than his own; (2) he's too old to play that character anymore; (3) he doesn't want to play/write that character anymore; the jokes are getting stale and the performance becoming pure shtick. The tiredness of Jade Scorpion is epitomized by the only specific criticism I'll bother to make: Dan Akyroyd's character gets zero funny lines. Nada. When was the last time Woody Allen wrote a main character in a farce with no funny lines? Never. So the burning question is: Will Woody Allen ever enjoy a Bob Dylanesque renaissance? I hope so, but I doubt it. Relatively speaking, music is easy; comedy is hard.
Buffy N. gave it a 7:
Compared to other first-run shlock out there, this one's a frequently amusing comedy that hangs together, for the most part, and is fun to watch for the art direction alone.
Seamus O. gave it a 9:
A fun and entertaining film. Not his greatest but still heads and shoulders above the rest of the drivel coming out of Hollywood these days.
