After the fiercely enjoyable Vicky Christina Barcelona, this return to New York City is a letdown, though not without a few charms.
Comment
07/03/09
Whatever Works (2009)
29
%
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:35
Fresh:10
Rotten:25
Average Rating:4.8/10
Consensus: Based upon a script written in the 1970s, Woody Allen's Whatever Works suffers from a lack of fresh ideas.
Theatrical Release:Jun 19, 2009 Limited
Box Office: $5,183,644
Synopsis: The New York-based humor of Woody Allen and CURB YOUR ENTHUSIAM’s Larry David seems like a natural match, and the pair unite for the first time in this comedy. WHATEVER WORKS follows a rich man... [More]
Starring: Larry David, Evan Rachel Wood, Patricia Clarkson, Ed Begley
Director: Woody Allen
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Reviews for Whatever Works
Top CriticThe result is a witty, well-played work without an adequate center. If you can get past that, Whatever Works does.
07/03/09
Top CriticWhatever Works isn't topnotch Woody Allen, but it's still immensely funny.
07/03/09
Top CriticThis toxic, contemptuous, unforgivably unfunny bagatelle finds Allen at his most misanthropically one-note.
07/02/09
Top CriticThe dialogue is forced and stagey, the actions as predictable as they are improbable and the insights little more than dusty clichés.
06/26/09
Top CriticIt never registers as more than a writer's conceit.
06/26/09
Top CriticWe've seen this kind of May-December setup in many Allen movies, but this one follows a less predictable path and with more amusing secondary characters.
06/26/09
Top CriticWoody Allen had a nice winning streak going for him, and then he brought in his younger self to screw things up.
06/26/09
Top CriticAllen and David do stuff in Whatever Works that shouldn't work but does.
06/26/09
Top CriticComing off last year's Vicky Cristina Barcelona, the freshest Allen film in more than a decade, Whatever Works plays like a hoary old Broadway stage comedy yanked, reluctantly, into the present.
06/25/09
Top CriticAs Whatever Works creaks along, the attention-getting nastiness of the first half dissipates and it turns into just another Woody Allen overacted sex farce.
06/25/09
Top CriticComing off last year's Vicky Cristina Barcelona, the freshest Allen film in more than a decade, Whatever Works plays like a hoary old Broadway stage comedy yanked, reluctantly, into the present.
06/25/09
Top CriticWhatever Works would have only worked if its director had written his trademark self-caricature out of it.
06/25/09
Top CriticLarry David is the mind of the enterprise, and Evan Rachel Wood is the heart.
06/25/09
Top CriticIt’s consistently very funny, sharp and observant.
06/22/09
Top CriticIt’s no secret that I am a lifelong Woody Allen fan.
06/22/09
Top CriticIt’s good to have Allen return to the city he grew up in. Can the grown-up Woody come back now, please?
06/19/09
Top CriticAs a holding pattern until Allen gets a new, better movie together, this works for now.
06/19/09
Top CriticExcept for brief moments, Whatever Works does not involve.
06/19/09
Top CriticA belabored trifle that's occasionally amusing but often just bewildering, beginning with the movie's intentionally outlandish setup.
06/19/09
Top CriticLatest News for Whatever Works
June 18, 2009:
Critics Consensus: Year One Fails To Beget Laughs
This week at the movies, we've got Biblical bloopers (Year One, starring Jack Black and Michael Cera) and an engagement of convenience (The Proposal, starring Sandra Bullock and... More...
May 10, 2009:
Trailer Bulletin: Whatever Works 
Larry David steps in as Woody Allen's latest on-screen surrogate in "Whatever Works," due out June 19. Watch the trailer now! More...
May 10, 2009:
Trailer & Poster review
More...
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