Much Ado About Nothing (1993)
Directed by Kenneth Branagh
In this Shakespearean farce, Hero and her groom-to-be, Claudio, team up with Claudio's commanding officer, Don Pedro, the week before their wedding to hatch a matchmaking scheme. Their targets are sharp-witted duo Benedick and Beatrice -- a tough task indeed, considering their corresponding distaste for love and each other. Meanwhile, meddling Don John plots to ruin the wedding.
10 connections found
View:
10 connections, in both directions
What critics compared Much Ado About Nothing to
Whedon did a stripped-down, modern-day version of “Much Ado About Nothing” in his backyard, so why not?
And Age of Ultron does light up, a few times every hour (of which there are nearly 2½), with the bright, clever dialogue and attention to intimate human exchanges proper to Whedon’s genre-shifting TV series over the past two decades—not to mention the very different other film he directed in 2012, an effervescent, no-budget Much Ado About Nothing shot in Whedon’s backyard.
After shooting the first Avengers, Whedon said his “detox” was the unassuming black-and-white adaptation of Much Ado About Nothing that he shot at his own house during a two-week “vacation” from post-production.
The restless filmmaker who did a low-budget version of Much Ado About Nothing in between these movies will find something else worthy of his time.
This leaves hope that he might return to more quick-witted, and honestly entertaining, work like his Much Ado About Nothing adaptation.
When the filmmaker and actor’s name pops up, you likely – and fortunately, for his sake – recall the man’s respected string of Shakespeare adaptations: Henry V, Much Ado About Nothing, As You Like It, and his gargantuan Hamlet.
A harrowing grocery store riot near the end of the film is a spectacular achievement, one which reminds viewers that for all his more recent, forgettable work, Branagh is also the filmmaker who put an incredible one-take crane shot into 1993’s Much Ado About Nothing.
There are some bad bullies on the block starting riots with increasing frequency, and it’s only a matter of time before Buddy’s sensible, distractingly sexy parents played by “50 Shades of Grey” stud Jamie Dornan and leggy Caitriona Balfe will move the kid to England so he can someday join the Royal Shakespeare Company and make “Henry V” and “Much Ado About Nothing” and a few other films I enjoyed so much more than “Belfast.”
Branagh seems to be trying to get away from the glorious excesses of his Shakespeare films, but restraint doesn’t suit him—nothing in Belfast is so vibrant and truthful as the sight of him jubilantly frolicking in a fountain in 1993′s Much Ado About Nothing.
Belfast , writer-director Kenneth Branagh’s semi-autobiographical story about a snippet of his childhood in the capital city of Northern Ireland is, for my money, his best film since Much Ado About Nothing all the way back in the early ‘90s.
Digging into his childhood memories, Sir Branagh ( Henry V , 1989; Much Ado About Nothing , 1993) crafts a finely-acted, sensitively-written chronicle about an Irish working-class family with a very hard decision to make.
It seems almost as if the screenplay writer has taken his finale from William Shakespeare's jubilant Much Ado About Nothing where despite all the trickery and the misunderstandings, love triumphs and sends us on our way rejoicing!
From Henry V (which earned him Oscar nods for best actor and for best director) to Hamlet to Much ado about Nothing, there’s a great prestige present in much of his filmography (the same can be said for Thor , Branagh’s venture into the Marvel universe).
Branagh has a checkered career as a filmmaker, with sparkling Shakespeare adaptations like Henry V and Much Ado About Nothing resting alongside stolid big-budget movies like Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein and Thor, but he demonstrates a firm understanding of his task with Cinderella.
Branagh is at ease with this equality, not making a big deal of it, just as his “Much Ado About Nothing” (1993) was improved and beautified by the presence of Denzel Washington, even if the film was a shade too sunny for that troubled play.
At the start he seems addicted to high spirits, but as in Much Ado About Nothing (93), there’s heart as well as hardiness in his work with the ensemble.
Advertisement
…it feels right for this particular character to be at war with herself and to be a personality trifle of Beatrice from “Much Ado About Nothing,” Mabel from “A Woman Under the Influence,” and Mae West.
Michael Keaton once proved himself a wonderfully versatile actor, capable of comedy ("Beetlejuice"), dark drama ("Batman," "Clean and Sober"), and even Shakespeare ("Much Ado About Nothing").
Your ticket to this movie (unless you see the 3-D version) costs the same as one for a pinchpenny indie film like Much Ado About Nothing.
Perhaps a better title for The Da Vinci Code might be Much Ado about Nothing.
Advertisement
Having proven his worth at adapting some of Shakespeare’s finest work with such features as Henry V (1989), Much Ado About Nothing (1993), and Hamlet (1996), it stands to reason that Kenneth Branagh would align himself with the catalogue of another respected writer such as Agatha Christie, and as both director and lead actor (screen writing duties fall to Logan scribe Michael Green) he wholly embraces the story’s aesthetic both thematically and characteristically.
And yet, along comes Kenneth Branagh, he who gave us, in his heyday, such fine Shakespearean adaptations as Henry V , Much Ado About Nothing and Hamlet , before moving on to merely entertaining, if forgettable, non-Shakespearean fare like Thor , Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit and Cinderella .
Not since 1993’s Much Ado About Nothing has Branagh seemed this spry and fleet-footed in a performance – yet another reason to hope that more such outings will materialize.
Branagh, a thespian well-known for capturing Shakespeare adaptations on-screen (Henry V, Much Ado About Nothing, Hamlet) is a wise choice to tackle Christie’s Poirot, especially given his knowledgeable background in both literature and stage.
As a director, Branagh has often favored projects that star himself as pompous leading men — including Hamlet, Much Ado About Nothing, and Henry V — so casting himself as Poirot is hardly surprising.
River's Edge, Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure, My Own Private Idaho, Speed, and The Devil's Advocate lead us to believe there is; Much Ado About Nothing, Johnny Mnemonic, and A Walk in the Clouds all point to No. Little Buddha asks, Huh?