9/10
Only the second Woody Allen movie I've ever seen, so don't use me as a barometer. I walked in unenthused and prepared to not like it (the first 10 minutes or so didn't really endear me) and walked out feeling as charmed and as filled with starry-eyed wonder as the protagonist Gill, played effortlessly by Owen Wilson. The plot isn't anything new (a disaffected, struggling writer sejourning with his bourgeoise wife in Paris starts to question his life's direction) but it's presented in a very clever way - Wilson's midnight walks around Paris find him in the past, encountering his heroes from the art world and in particular Adriana, a woman similarly out of step with her own era and searching for a sense of self.
Any movie featuring time travel is bound to include one self-conscious wink-nudge joke for the audience's benefit (e.g. Back to the Future's "President Ronald Reagan - the ACTOR?") but Midnight in Paris has the sharpest one I've ever heard involving Gill suggesting to Luis Bunuel...well I won't spoil it.
The entire movie is very light and breezy, but incredibly tight and clever. There's a bit of inanely expository dialogue, some broadly painted characters, and the ending is a bit cornball, but it's so fun and so charming it's hard to really care too much.
The movie also works well as a 90 minute infomercial for Paris because man do I want to go now.
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