"Vicky Christina Barcelona"

A four-course dessert -- beautiful people, sexy problems, lush scenery, literate dialogue, warm atmosphere and fine music -- but just not as tasty as it might've been. Still, it looks so good on the plate you might not even mind, because this is a movie that was seemingly invented as an oasis away from rainy Sunday afternoons.

The problem, I think, is that this might be Allen's only non-thriller without a single solitary joke*. And while pratfalls and glib one-liners would spoil the mood, the utter lack of humor (beyond, of course, the folly of love and sexual attraction) mostly hobbles the story.

But Cruz is fine. And Bardem has charisma to shred -- I liked how his confident-not-cocky Lothario makes some bold moves but never lies, never presents himself as more or less than he was.

And Rebecca Hall (whose British accent I sorely missed) inexplicably didn't get to be on the poster (she's a title character! and she's stunning!) but still rises beautifully above Allen's designation of her as The Judy Davis Character (in other words, the shrill hypocrite).

* Maybe I'm just weird, or maybe I was humor starved, but I laughed at length over the only moment I took for an actual scripted joke -- the moment Johansson reveals the second language she knows, and her reasons for semi-learning it. In a crowded theater yesterday, I cackled alone. A few more of those moments would've been a great help to the film.