I was not as enamored with Woody Allen’s Oscar-nominated “Match Point” as everyone else seemed to be last Christmas. While many critics hailed it as a return to form for the legendary writer-director, I personally found it to be an interesting, well-acted curiosity, an obvious bait and switch genre piece that wasn’t anywhere near as classy or witty as the director intended it to be. It wasn’t a failure, not by any stretch of the imagination, it just wasn’t all that special, and for the life of me I still can’t quite figure out why so many went so completely gaga over it.

It only figures I would instead find the filmmaker’s second London adventure (and his second in a row with talented ingénue Scarlett Johansson), the silly and slight comedy-mystery “Scoop,” to be a far more entertaining motion picture. While it is definitely a throwaway piece (it has that same, exuberantly boisterous tossed-off feel as “Manhattan Murder Mystery”), it is still an extremely amusing one, the script littered with one liners and comic retorts bordering on the priceless.

The story is joyous in its simplistic complexity. After stepping into a disappearing booth during a stage show by Sid a.k.a. Splendini Waterman, visiting young American journalism student Sondra Pransky (Johansson) is visited by the ghost of celebrated British investigative journalist Joe Strombel (Ian McShane). It turns out while on his voyage up the River Styx he’s discovered that noted aristocrat Peter Lyman (Hugh Jackman) might be the notorious Tarot Card Strangler, and he’s leaving it up to Sondra to bring the bloke to justice.

Enlisting the help of the incredulous and sarcastically nervous Sid, the beguiling Yank literally splashes her way into Peter’s bourgeois life. The thing is, each step leads her to wonder if he’s really the killer, clues turning out to be red herrings moving her in the wrong direction. It doesn’t help she’s falling in love with the guy, and even with Strombel popping up to give her an earful and Sid starting to have his doubts replaced by suspicions Sondra starting to think this sweet, charming and romantic guy must be innocent.

It’s thin, not really even worth the 90-plus minutes it takes to get from start to finish, but right from the get-go “Scoop” made me giggle, and I didn’t stop until I’d gotten a good five or six steps away from my front door. While this isn’t Allen at his best (and I can’t help but wonder if the days of “Husbands and Wives,” “Crimes and Misdemeanors” and “Annie Hall” – just to name a few – are long behind him) it certainly still far more entertaining a comedy than just about anything else out there. The film is a lark, almost a theater piece full of Oscar Wilde-like witticisms and clever visual sight gags all of which are truly wonderful.

Some of this is pretty asinine. I got a tired of Sid’s constant whining and his magic tricks, while amusing at first, don’t make for a great running gag. Also, the whole thing is quite stagy. It felt like the movie was sitting at the forefront of a Proscenium Arch and I was planted in the front row. Not necessarily a bad thing, true, but after a while I couldn’t help but wonder why this was in the theater and not on Broadway. The theatricality borders on the musty, a dust covered inertness skewing the picture towards far older audiences than the ones usually making trips to the multiplex.

I still liked it, in large part because this is as an effervescent and bubbly performance Johansson has ever given. Never has she been this light on her feet, this dexterous in her mannerisms and comedic timing. For the first time in ages it appears like this talented, almost dour performer known for her gloomy seriousness in pictures like “Lost in Translation” and “Girl with a Pearl Earring” is actually having fun. Lo and behold, I had it right along with her.

Throw in marvelous support from McShane, Jackman and Allen, the latter playing off of her like a pinball searching for its flipper, and “Scoop” has more comedic ducks in a row in one scene than most films have in their entire running time. From giddily silly montages of wayward souls sailing with the Grim Reaper to Jackman reveling in his own pompous superiority there’s much here to enjoy. While it’s not breaking news, Allen’s crafted a winner, and considering how difficult that’s been for him of late maybe that fact deserves a banner headline all of its own.