This is a slight film, a minor Allen film, a bit of a footnote, but it's warm and engaging and isn't Matchpoint, Scoop or Cassandra's Dream, which has to be a mercy.

| Aug 29, 2018

Penelope's performance is a little sterotypoical, but fantastic...

| Original Score: B+ | Sep 12, 2017

Allen seems uninterested in pushing his material beyond impersonally generic, or even in thinking things through.

| Feb 6, 2014

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Nov 17, 2011

| Original Score: B- | Sep 7, 2011

| Original Score: B+ | May 6, 2011

For all its meditations on romantic disappointments, this is a slight, sunny film. Anyone in need of some superior escapism should see it straightaway.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Feb 12, 2009

By the time Cruz appears, Vicky Cristina Barcelona has delivered on those initial good omens: it's Allen's best film in at least a decade.

| Feb 10, 2009

Leave it to Woody Allen to muck up a threesome involving Scarlett Johansson and Penelope Cruz.

| Original Score: C | Feb 9, 2009

Slight, disposable but entertaining. Vicky Cristina Barcelona is an awful lot better than anything in his thankfully short "British" period.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Feb 6, 2009

Vicky Cristina Barcelona, Woody Allen's latest comeback, is nothing like the return to form his apologists claim, but it's not terrible, which is a mercy after his grim trio of British projects.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Feb 6, 2009

No doubt about it, Allen's latest throwaway rom-com is utterly silly, forgettable and predictable. It's also his most purely entertaining film in years.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Feb 6, 2009

Hard to tell if Woody's schoolboyish crush on Spain (Gaudí! Miro! Flamenco!) rivals his one on Johansson but both are equally embarrassing.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Feb 6, 2009

Within Allen's recent output, Vicky Cristina is the highlight. See it for beautiful locales, an ambivalent look at human relationships and a clutch of great performances, especially from Cruz.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Feb 5, 2009

The script is witty and playful, the casting just right.

| Original Score: 4/6 | Feb 5, 2009

Woody Allen's spoof of the Don Juan myth Vicky Christina Barcelona is his best film this century.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Feb 5, 2009

The erotic roundelays are so witty - Marivaux with sex - that I am now afraid to see a future Allen film. It will either be bad, returning us to the natural order of things, or good like this, demanding a rethink of the universe.

| Feb 5, 2009

It's determinedly silly, and possibly wishful-thinking, in essence. After what we've seen from Allen from Match Point onwards, its sheer entertainment value is a minor miracle.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Feb 5, 2009

A sparklingly funny, meltingly sexy romcom.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Feb 5, 2009

The humour is more situational, less assertive, less reliant on wisecracks and obvious punchlines.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jan 15, 2009