I’m not a big Woody Allen fan. There, I’ve said it. In some movie circles, admitting that can be a sin. For me, many of his films are decent when you see them the first time, but ultimately forgettable (I haven’t seen last year’s acclaimed Blue Jasmine, it is sitting on my DVR at the moment). Having said all that, Magic in the Moonlight is about what I expected.
This was my second Colin Firth movie of the day, had rented The Railway Man and watched that earlier this morning (a much better film – look it up). In Magic in the Moonlight, Firth plays a magician in the late 20’s, who has a talent for debunking fake telepaths and psychics. He is a pragmatic man, and doesn’t believe in (real) magic, an afterlife, or God for that matter. When his longtime friend comes to him with the story of a new, young American psychic duping a rich family in southern France, Firth agrees to go do his thing. Upon meeting this girl, played by the spunky and charming Emma Stone, he is unable to unmask her and starts to doubt his own lifelong beliefs.
Sometimes you have a cute little idea, but you don’t do anything with that idea. I feel like this movie was a little idea that Allen had, and he had nothing else going on so he decided to turn it into a film. It’s not a terrible movie, and Firth and Stone are both excellent actors as we know, but there just isn’t enough here to make anything special.
Jons Movie Takes 