MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING (1992)
A film review by Mike Watson Copyright 1998 Mike Watson
RATING: 1 out of 5
Much ado about nothing. Ah, how sweet the irony!
It's accepted wisdom in some circles - among English literature nuts, mainly - that whenever a critic knocks Shakespeare they are only doing so through ignorance. He just doesn't "understand" Shakespeare, you will hear them say. The Bard's work is apparently beyond criticism.
What a load of old cobblers. If these arbiters of public taste think Kenneth Branaugh's film of Shakespeare's "comedy" MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING is comedy in any modern sense of the word, it's time to get a life. Get Monty Python. Get Woody Allen. Get John Waters. Whatever. Just get a real taste of some clever, witty, risky comedy. And banish this nonsense to where it belongs. Drama and tragedy was Shakespeare's strength. To my sensibilities - and I'm no stick in the mud - MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING resonates with no spark whatsoever.
No kidding: this film ranks among the most embarrassing two hours I have ever spent in a cinema in my 20 years of movie going. The only thing that stopped me walking out was loyalty to my lady friend, as this was our day out and I hadn't seen her in ages. But boy, does she owe me one!
I won't spend too much time on the plot. Basically, we follow the trials and tribulations of two would-be couples - one young, the other older. There's some dark treachery amongst all this, but everyone is so awfully jolly that you'd hardly know it. Mind you, there's nothing wrong with the basic story. Good romantic comedies based on similar premises abound. Nothing wrong with most of the cast, either. Branaugh, Emma Thompson and Denzel Washington are all talented performers.
The problem is the script, or more accurately, Shakespeare's original text. Light comedy shouldn't be complex. Yet wrapped in Elizabethan English, the dialogue becomes difficult to comprehend. For this alone it will be a problem for modern audiences unschooled in Shakespeare and in search of nothing more than a good, undemanding laugh. The only laughs to escape my belly were brought on by the gloriously inept performance of Keanu Reeves, the actor once again miscast as a jealous half-brother or something.
But when dissected and understood, what it all boils down to is that this stuff is just so goddamn lame. This is comedy so clean and nice and corny and so devoid of danger that it leaves this viewer totally cold. Ho, ho, ho, boy likes girl! Ho, ho, ho, men are such klutzes! Ho, ho, ho, she's so awfully clumsy! Oh please! There's wit in here somewhere, I'm told. I call it pretentious. Something lightweight striving to be something sophisticated through clever wordplay.
In the end, it's cringeworthy. Watching some of the cinema patrons around me collapse with laughter made MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING a very weird movie going experience. Comedy? Bah, humbug!
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