51
Metascore
12 reviews · Provided by Metacritic.com
- 75Miami HeraldBill CosfordMiami HeraldBill CosfordWoody Allen's new movie, A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy, will not make you cry, as Annie Hall and Manhattan were capable of, and it won't make you cringe, as Stardust Memories almost demanded. It is not screamingly funny, romantically piquant, bitter or even, in most ways, unusual. With the exception of a single recurring image--that of Allen as an amateur inventor of the early 20th Century, flapping about in various homemade flying machines--there is not even anything of the absurd in this film. It's just an engaging Woody Allen movie, in which much of the humor is familiar and the tone is as moistly appealing as the title suggests. [18 July 1982, p.L3]
- 60EmpireDavid ParkinsonEmpireDavid ParkinsonNot Woody Allen at his best, this period piece has some clever writing but is not completely convincing.
- 60Time Out LondonTime Out LondonAllen's version of Smiles of a Summer Night keeps the period country house setting but reduces the characters to six: two medical swingers, an elderly academic and his much younger fiancée, and a long-married couple whose sex-life has ground to a halt. His best invention remains his own screen persona, and the Bergman borrowings here provide it with a warm, romantic and old-fashioned setting.
- 60Washington PostRita KempleyWashington PostRita KempleyIt's not Allen's best film, but fans of the Woodman should not resist. Whether it's the future of Sleeper or the turn-of-the- century of Sex Comedy, Allen plays the same character -- always bewildered, always sex-obsessed, always under-consummated. [23 July 1982, p.11]
- 50Chicago Sun-TimesRoger EbertChicago Sun-TimesRoger EbertA Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy is so low-key, so sweet and offhand and slight, there are times when it hardly even seems happy to be a movie.
- 50The New York TimesJanet MaslinThe New York TimesJanet MaslinIts light classical manner and its happyish ending. Whatever Mr. Allen is doing in constructing this pretty, slight, gently entertaining movie, he isn't doing the thing he does best. A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy gives the impression of someone speaking fluently but formally in a language not his own.
- 50TV Guide MagazineTV Guide MagazineWoody Allen is among a very few people in the history of film who have provided audiences with really intelligent humor. But even Homer nods, and never has Allen more obviously fallen down on the job than in A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy, a trifle that owes much to Ingmar Bergman in style and to Groucho Marx in content.
- 50Washington PostGary ArnoldWashington PostGary ArnoldA Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy promises to take off every so often, but the material proves too slight for buoyant fancy. [16 July 1982, p.C1]
- 50The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Rick GroenThe Globe and Mail (Toronto)Rick GroenIf the title is half-familiar, the contents are wholly surprising. Happily, all of the bitterness is gone. Sadly, so has most of the humor. What remains is a conclusion startling but unmistakable - Woody Allen has grown bland. [16 July 1982]