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Much Ado About Nothing
Overall I really enjoyed it. As one review I read said, it was so clear that everyone in the cast was having a blast, which made it fun to watch.
I knew I would love it just for the Whedon alums (especially Clark Gregg, who I am totally crushing on these days), but I did wonder if it would live up to the Kenneth Branagh-Emma Thompson version, since Emma Thompson was such a luminous Beatrice. But I really loved Amy Acker's performance, and Alexis Denisof was a great Benedick (though, all these years after Angel, his real accent still throws me! I keep expecting to hear British!) I especially loved how both of them did the physical humor so well--I was laughing out loud at those scenes.
I might actually buy the soundtrack, I loved the music so much, especially the Hey Nonny Nonny song at the first party. And I loved how they used the settings so well, and the fun ways they incorporated modern technology. My only problem with the modernization was that the dilemma--Hero's virginity or lack thereof, and especially the solutions (faking her death to make Claudio feel guilty, faking a marriage to Beatrice)--are SO 16th century that it really felt more jarring than watching this play normally is. Especially with the decision to make Beatrice and Benedick former lovers--that worked really really well at the beginning to explain why they each had such a hate-on for the other, but it made the confrontations about Hero's supposed lack of virtue seem extremely bizarre.
I'm not sure how that could be avoided without fundamentally changing the play, though. (And editing Shakespeare is one thing, but totally rewriting would take a special type of hubris, I suspect.) Anyway, despite my problems with some of the original text, I really enjoyed the film.
I knew I would love it just for the Whedon alums (especially Clark Gregg, who I am totally crushing on these days), but I did wonder if it would live up to the Kenneth Branagh-Emma Thompson version, since Emma Thompson was such a luminous Beatrice. But I really loved Amy Acker's performance, and Alexis Denisof was a great Benedick (though, all these years after Angel, his real accent still throws me! I keep expecting to hear British!) I especially loved how both of them did the physical humor so well--I was laughing out loud at those scenes.
I might actually buy the soundtrack, I loved the music so much, especially the Hey Nonny Nonny song at the first party. And I loved how they used the settings so well, and the fun ways they incorporated modern technology. My only problem with the modernization was that the dilemma--Hero's virginity or lack thereof, and especially the solutions (faking her death to make Claudio feel guilty, faking a marriage to Beatrice)--are SO 16th century that it really felt more jarring than watching this play normally is. Especially with the decision to make Beatrice and Benedick former lovers--that worked really really well at the beginning to explain why they each had such a hate-on for the other, but it made the confrontations about Hero's supposed lack of virtue seem extremely bizarre.
I'm not sure how that could be avoided without fundamentally changing the play, though. (And editing Shakespeare is one thing, but totally rewriting would take a special type of hubris, I suspect.) Anyway, despite my problems with some of the original text, I really enjoyed the film.