The real reason Woody Allen makes movies.

What is it we want from Woody Allen, anyway? Hasn't the man entertained us enough by now? Can't we just let him make his movies and go to see them and file out of the theater afterwards, smiling politely? Do we have to talk about them, saying things like, "Well, that was no Annie Hall," or "Hard to believe that's the same guy who made Love and Death"? Hasn't he earned a little slack?

Well, no. Come on, that's not what you people pay me for. (By the way, I haven't gotten your check yet. Yeah, you.)

The Curse of the Jade Scorpion is a screwball comedy/film noir spoof, set in the 1940s, so people get to wear great clothes and smoke. C.W. Briggs, played by Allen, is an insurance investigator with an almost uncanny knack for solving cases. In a line lifted from Edward G. Robinson's insurance investigator in Double Indemnity, he refers to his instincts as a "little man"inside him that tells him when something's fishy. And he's going to need that little man, because he's about to undertake the most challenging case of his career — tracking down a criminal who happens to be himself.

"Last year Mel Gibson was my leading man. Now I get to choose between you and Woody Allen? Someone get my agent on the phone!"

Briggs and his insurance company nemesis, Betty Ann Fitzgerald (Helen Hunt), are hypnotized by a nightclub magician (David Ogden Stiers), who then uses them to rob their company's clients. The fact that this would never work is irrelevant. The plot isn't the important thing here, and that's fine. What is supposed to be important is the humor. The wisecracks fly, particularly between Briggs and Fitzgerald. Only about thirty percent of them are funny, but who's counting.

What's more problematic is the assumption that these two characters are really falling in love while they're heckling each other. Rapid-fire insults may have been foreplay for Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell in His Girl Friday, but between Allen and Hunt, they just sound mean. They never seem to like each other, even a little bit. It doesn't help that Allen is old enough to be her father. (And not the good kind of old enough to be her father, like Paul Newman or Robert Redford.) Nothing builds between these two characters, but I guess we're supposed to pretend that it does.

Veronica Lake, eat your heart out.

Another problem is that nobody seems to be having any fun. It's like they all thought, "Well, it's a Woody Allen movie, I guess I'd better do it," but don't really feel much like being there. Even Woody Allen. There's one exception. Charlize Theron gives a great performance as a vixenish rich girl slumming with the rumpled detective. She looks like she's having a fine time, vamping her way through her scenes, swilling vodka, giddy with the sordidness of it all.

There are some good laughs in the movie. The wisecracks that are funny are really funny. And it looks beautiful. Cinematographer Zhao Fei fills the scenes with luxurious golden light and rich, nostalgic tones. Overall, it's not nearly as bad as Allen's last effort, the excruciating Small Time Crooks. I never wrote a review of that one, but if I did it would contain phrases like, "coma-inducingly dull," "almost deliberately unfunny," and "would gnaw my own leg off rather than sit through it again." I'd watch Jade Scorpion a second time, though you may have to hypnotize me first. But when you compare it to my personal favorite Woody Allen movies, Bullets Over Broadway and Crimes and Misdemeanors, it just seems so tired. So very, very tired.

Gorilla Pants rating: 2 out of 4 bananas