KB has never been any less than the most ham-fisted of directors but with this film he finally manages to succeed in completely smashing poor Willy the Shake into a mashed-up pulp. Branagh's usual, undecided "style" - combining wooden theatricality with sudden and meaningless camera swoops that so very often miss the mark - resembles a picnic table after the party is over, leaving our senses smeared with an appalling residue of pretty much every reference you can find in the film dictionary, while its strangely out of place Benatton-ad cast fumble their way through the absurdly chosen Samurai world they've been instructed to make believable. Time and time again this hodge-podge of a piece seems to steer its way strangely into comedy, jarring to halt midstream as it - and we - realize it's completely devoid of anything particularly funny, unless you find a scrawny black Orlando knocking out cold a massive Sumo wrestler with a series of unbelievably silly slapping motions knock-down hilarious. What's most unfunny is that even such wonderful actors of the caliber of Romola Garai and Janet McTeer become unwitting victims, their performances buried beneath atrocious camera work and god-awful staging. Mr. Branagh needs to back off from parking on the director's chair, or the future of Shakespeare finding its way onto the big - or small - screen is sure to be very bleak indeed. And that would be a tragedy.
Review of As You Like It
