ScoopWOODY Allen remains in recycle mode. He scored his biggest critical and commercial hit in a long while with last year’s Match Point, which revisited themes of murder and blind justice he previously examined in Crimes and Misdemeanors.His latest, Scoop, is a mirror image of Match Point, flipping that film’s droll, dark story of infidelity and violent scheming among London’s upper crust to a similar tale played for laughs, writes David Germain<$>.

For hard-core Allen fans, there will be laughs as he hems and haws and whines through his usual self-absorbed patter. But Allen — co-starring for the first time since 2003’s Anything Else <$>— is less likeable and less amusing this time, looking rather worn and coming across as more of a boor than an agreeable grouch.

The basic plot of Scoop — two hapless people playing amateur sleuths to discover whether a man is a murderer — also is reminiscent of an earlier Allen film, Manhattan Murder Mystery<$>.

Back again is Allen’s latest leading lady, Scarlett Johansson, who seemed to be doing a greatest-hits take on the writer-director’s past shrill women in Match Point <$>and now appears to mimic the Allen ditzes once played by Diane Keaton and Mia Farrow.

Johansson stars as Sondra Pransky, an American journalism student vacationing in London. Attending a performance by a magician, Sid Waterman (Allen), Sondra is hauled on stage for a disappearing act, during which she encounters the ghost of the recently departed Joe Strombel (Ian McShane), a legendary British reporter.

Joe’s come back from the dead to find someone to pursue a great news tip passed on to him in the hereafter: That dashing aristocrat Peter Lyman (Hugh Jackman) actually is a modern Jack the Ripper snuffing prostitutes.

Sondra and Sid carry out an elaborate charade to infiltrate Peter’s social circle and investigate, with romantic sparks flying (thankfully, considering Allen’s history of pairing himself with much-younger women, we’re not forced to watch Sid wooing someone youthful enough to be his granddaughter).

The performances are uniformly one-note, but Johansson and Jackman are so perky and pretty together, they make the time pass amiably enough. Allen’s bound to be a drag for all but his loyal fans, while McShane’s role is fleeting and overly genteel, sorely needing an injection of the sardonic venom he displays on HBO’s Deadwood<$>.

A handful of fine British actors sturdily round out the supporting cast with small roles, among them Charles Dance, Romola Garai and Fenella Woolgar.

Like other recent Allen comedies such as Hollywood Ending and The Curse of the Jade Scorpion<$>, Scoop has a half-finished air about it, a cute opening act that bogs down in the middle and winds up nowhere.Hollywood Ending<$> at least tacked on a funny closing gag, but Scoop just trails off limply. Even the scenes in the Great Beyond feel like pale echoes of Allen’s funnier moments in the afterlife, when he danced with the Reaper in 1975’s Love and Death<$>.

Allen’s doing a third movie set in London. It would be nice to have something fresh from the Manhattanite that didn’t come off as a rehash of a story he’s already told, and told better, on the streets of New York.Scoop, a Focus Features release, is rated PG-13 for some sexual content. Running time: 95 minutes. Two stars out of four.

Allen’s Scoop