saltycedar This movie is not only boring but also has the icky, makes you wanna barf kinda HUGE age gap between the couple.. I think it's only fit for Woody Allen. I really find this so bald when you married your girlfriends adopted child and while everyone talks about you're a child molester.. Guy has the nerve.. Sorry but we are in 2010's and maybe your children is so brainwashed and to be able to get married to you with this age gap, no self assured woman has this kinda age gap in her romantic life.. How can the audience find them attractive together he is like her father?! The only reason I watched this because I wanted to watch Emma Stone but now I'm not sure that I wanna watch her anymore..

borromeot I saw another Woody Allen film, "Wonder Wheel" just the other day. I was overwhelmed by Kate Winslet's performance even if the film is not one of Allen's best, Kate Winslet makes it a must so I started searching for other Woody Allen films that I may have missed. Magic in the Moonlight (2014) I didn't even know this movie existed and it has Colin Firth in the lead. Colin Firth has been a favorite actor of mine since Apartment Zero (1988) and Emma Stone won the Oscar last year. I organized my evening to enjoy every minute of this unexpected treat. Well. the film looks wonderful and it has Eileen Atkins in it but the romantic aspect of the tale left me completely cold. Emma Stone projects discomfort more than anything else and Colin Firth performs as if he was on a stage. Every line is recited and their chemistry is also acted. By not believing in them the entire film felt like a plodding attempt at something that never materializes. Maybe next time.

blanche-2 Woody Allen is certainly a phenomenon. Say what you want about him, no one is as prolific and no one is as expert in as many genres as he is."Magic in the Moonlight" from 2014 is a light comedy with a serious question underneath. Starring Colin Firth, Emma Stone, Eileen Atkins, and Hamish Linklater, Allen takes us to 1928 Paris. There, a famous magician, Wei Ling Soo, amazes audiences with his disappearing acts, sleight of hand, and sawing an assistant in half.Backstage, he's the arrogant, egomaniacal, dismissive Stanley, beautifully portrayed by Colin Firth. Stanley is approached by an old school friend to help him. He has been asked to debunk a medium, Sophie (Emma Stone) but finds he can't. He needs Stanley to watch and debunk her. Stanley is based on an actual magician, William Ellsworth Robinson who performed under the name of Chung Ling Soo. Soo also sought to debunk mediums. It must be a thing with magicians because Houdini did it as well.But just as Stanley dazzles us with his magic, Sophie dazzles Stanley with her beauty and ability.He suddenly starts to ask himself if the world as he sees it - leading nowhere and meaning nothing -- is truly all there is.The real magician here is Allen, who keeps us guessing in this delightful, lyrical film, and yet asks us - can we really know if what we believe is real? Or must we cling to our illusions in order to survive? Anyone familiar with Allen knows how the movie will come out, but possibly Allen himself, now 80, is no longer as sure as Nietzsche about the world - brutal, cruel, and so short. Once in a while, an egomaniac like Stanley is forced to admit he might not know everything.Emma Watson is lovely as Sophie, somewhat down to earth for a medium, though she can go into quite a fugue state; and Hamish Linklater again shows his comedic talent and demonstrates a great lack of singing ability as he serenades Sophie. Eileen Atkins, as Stanley's wise aunt, gives an excellent performance, showing us a woman who loves her nephew but has never quite understood where some of his pessimistic ideas come from.The rest of the cast is very good and rounds out the film - Simon McBurney as Howard, Marcia Gay Harden as Sophie's mother -- her role is surprisingly small. Beautifully photographed and costumed, "Magic in the Moonlight" is just that, and asks questions that -- despite what Woody Allen and Stanley may think -- have no definite answers: Is there a metaphysical world? Is there something after death? Is there a meaning to life?No one knows.

nicknealuseche Colin Firth, Emma Stone acting with Woody Allen directing, what could go wrong? Well, the answer is almost everything. The dialogue was slow an unrealistic, and the acting wooden from the start, the plot frankly stupid. It seemed that Firth was just going through the motions as a hansom but cantankerous romantic lead, completely unbelievable and Emma Stone was completely miscast as the female lead. To be fair to both actors they were not helped by the stodgy script. You felt that this could have been made to work but it needed an injection of pace and better drawn characters. Firth plays a magician, because he uses tricks to perform he believes that there is no such thing as real magic or mysticism. He gets asked by a friend to debunk a mystic but then gets fooled into believing she really is a mystic. The problem I had with that was the ease with which he is fooled, with only a few demonstrations of the mystics abilities. Surely a real skeptic about mysticism would not be so easily swayed. The Firth Character is also written as a very one dimensional character who only believes in science which makes you ask the question, what is he doing performing magic in public if he is entirely rational. The problem with the Emma Stone character was simply that she was not believable as a mystic, she showed no showmanship at all, and therefore you believed her to be a very nice person but certainly not a performer of mystical acts. The supporting cast were similarly dire. Towards the end of the film I really lost interest in all the characters as there seemed no psychological depth to any of them. A very silly film and a waste of 90 minutes of my life.