Mighty Aphrodite

I’m not afraid to admit that I love Woody Allen. I love a lot of his earlier pictures like BANANAS, ANNIE HALL and even some of his later flicks like HUSBANDS AND WIVES and CRIMES AND MISDEMEANORS, but his latest collection of movies (think 1995 onwards) has done little to impress me (except for SMALL TIME CROOKS, which was pretty funny). This film is a perfect example of Woody Allen…without his “touch”.

The only thing that kinda saved this movie from being a total waste of time is the superb character, dialogue and acting displayed her from Mira Sorvino. She plays the ultimate bubblehead hooker with a big heart and soul who you just want to hug and dick, all at the same time. The character herself is actually pretty crude, but Sorvino’s delivery, her sweet demeanor and the whole nurturing side of her, just wins you over (she also won over some Academy members as she took home the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress that year).

I was actually gonna shut this movie down until she came into the picture (which is about 30 minutes or so into it– and it’s a 90-minute movie overall). Allen tries this whole “Greek chorus” thing between some of the scenes which TOTALLY didn’t work for me at all! (I know it was supposed to be “clever” or something, but I didn’t think that it was one bit funny).

The whole musical number at the end of the movie was kinda “okay”, but other than that, why the hell were those bozos even there? (other than to kill time and to creep me out with their masks).

Anyway, back to the story (the little bit that there actually was in this movie). This film is basically about Allen’s character helping out another character who is lost in her life. It’s kinda sweet and some of the moments between Allen and Sorvino are pretty funny, but what is this movie about in the end?! Not much. And not much humor either.

The lovely and talented Helena Bonham Carter is completely wasted in her role as Allen’s wife (although nobody can smoke a cigarette quite like her!) and the rest of the cast is barely visible as the film revolves solely around the only interesting character, that is Sorvino’s (trust me, she earns 4 out of the 5 points that I’m giving this film).

In the end, I was hoping that she would obviously take off her top, but it’s a Woody Allen movie, so no luck there (she looks dang good anyway!).

Overall, I would definitely NOT recommend this movie to anyone who is NOT a Woody Allen fan in the least, and would barely recommend it to fans of his, only because of Sorvino’s performance and because of the short skirts that she wears from scene to scene.

Other than that, I coulda killed that damn boring Greek chorus experiment on the side….ugh!! Here’s an example of their so-called humorous quips:

I see disaster. I see catastrophe. Worse, I see lawyers!

Haha. Ugh.

(c) 2021 Berge Garabedian