Kernel Rating (out of 5): 
MPAA Rating: PG-13 Length: 97 minutes
Age Appropriate For: 14+. This romantic drama considers ideas of religious faith and spiritual belief, which are ultimately rejected; some mild cursing; some sexually themed discussions, the discussion of marital infidelity, and some kissing; constant smoking and drinking by adults, because the film is set in the 1920s, after all. What feels most troubling, though, is the age gap between the two romantic leads, which is nearing 30 years in real life and is incredibly obvious in the film. It’s creepy, to say the least.
Woody Allen continues his prolific filmmaking career with ‘Magic in the Moonlight,’ but there isn’t much to be proud of here. A film full of actors who look like they’re playing dress-up, ‘Magic in the Moonlight’ is an obviously meant to be pleasant, but ultimately largely disappointing, experience.
By Roxana Hadadi
If you want to be thoroughly unsurprised this summer, “Magic in the Moonlight” is the way to go. The most recent film in Woody Allen’s late-life streak is meant to be in the same giddy and fizzy thematic vein as “Midnight in Paris,” but it instead brings to mind the obvious and cliched nature of “Blue Jasmine,” Allen’s most recent work. That film, which earned actress Cate Blanchett an Academy Award, was just a repetition of “A Streetcar Named Desire,” and now “Magic in the Moonlight” is just a repetition of the George Bernard Shaw play “Pygmalion.” You know, the one you probably read in high-school about a pompous, pretentious old man falling in love with an age-inappropriate female who bowed before his intellect and cleverness? Yeah, that.
