If you could forgive one filmmaker for recycling a few of his/her ideas, you’d have to pick one who is incredibly prolific.  Terrence Malick – not so much.  Woody Allen – okay, maybe you get a little bit of a pass, on account of cranking out a film every year since before I was born.  After crafting some truly middling (for him, anyways) movies this millennium, Allen now seems intent on taking his existing catalog, swapping settings from New York to London, and calling the amalgamation a new film.  Then again, I suppose this new means of “filmmaking” isn’t so bad, at least as long as Scarlett Johansson is in each of the remakes.

For those of you who don’t get the comparison, last year’s Match Point was 1989’s Crimes and Misdemeanors, while Allen’s new Scoop is a loose adaptation of 1993’s Manhattan Murder Mystery.  Both Scoop and Mystery involve a woman going all Nancy Drew in an attempt to catch a person they’re convinced is a cold-blooded killer.  Both women are aided by a male sidekick (both played by Allen; both capable of rattling off lines like, “Claustrophobia and a dead body – this is a neurotic's jackpot!”) who would sooner eat tainted cold cuts than trail a potential murderer, looking for clues.

In Scoop, the Diane Keaton character is Sondra Pransky (Johansson), a chatty journalism student on a long holiday in London.  While attending a show performed by a traveling American magician (who must be a client of Danny Rose), Sondra is plucked from the audience to participate in the great Splendini’s famous de-materialization trick.  When she’s placed in the wooden box, the ghost of a recently deceased reporter (Deadwood’s Ian McShane) appears and tells the not-so-plucky Sondra that the identity of the city's serial murderer called the “Tarot Card Killer” is the blue-blooded son of a Lord (Hugh Jackman).

Believe it or not, Scoop’s premise makes less sense than the above description, and it’s not even because I’m a shit writer.  Scoop is, however, like Mystery, more of a comedy than Point was.  At least it’s supposed to be – I found the gags a little tiresome, with Allen’s writing missing the mark with a greater rate than I’m used to seeing.  Additionally, straight comedy is like Kryptonite to Johansson.  As if that weren’t enough to whine about, Scoop’s mystery angle is nearly more laughable than the bulk of its jokes.  The big A Place in the Sun homage is completely devoid of actual tension, and that’s a shame coming on the heels of the impressively taught Point.

1:33 – for some sexual content