Much ado about nothing

Britain/USA 1993

Dir: Kenneth Branagh

111 mins, based on the Shakespeare play

Cast: Kenneth Branagh, Emma Thompson, Keanu Reeves

Rating: PG

A lush, romantic, joyous adaptation of Shakespeare's play with Branagh demonstrating yet again his skill in making Shakespeare accessible to a wide audience without devaluing the text.  Branagh's UK rep company cohorts plus the US film actors all look like they had a great time making this, with Branagh and Thompson particularly revelling in the verbal jousting, and the film is a treat visually, with the whole undertaking suffused in glorious Tuscan sunshine.

National Film Theatre, July 1994

A play like Much Ado About Nothing is all about style. I doubt if Shakespeare's audiences at the Globe took it any more seriously than we do. It is farce and mime and wisecracks, and dastardly melodrama which all comes right in the end, of course, because this is a Comedy. The key to the film's success is in the acting, especially in the sparks that fly between Branagh and Thompson as their characters aim their insults so lovingly that we realize, sooner than they do, how much they would miss their verbal duets.

Any modern film of Shakespeare must deal with the fact that many people in the audience will be unfamiliar with the play, and perhaps even with the playwright. Branagh deals with this fact by making Much Ado into a film that reinvents the story; this is not a film "of" a Shakespeare play, but a film that begins with the same materials and the wonderful language and finds its own reality. It is cheerful from beginning to end (since we can hardly take the moments of doom and despair seriously). It is entirely appropriate that it has been released in the springtime.

Roger Ebert, RogerEbert.com