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So. We watched Branagh's As You Like It. Which, to steal a joke from about ten sources, didn't live up to its name. That said, it doesn't suck nearly as much as some of the reviews implied it would.
It is, however, the worst of Branagh's five Bard adaptations to date, reminding me more of the stunt-casting Papp productions I saw in the late '80s in NYC (Look! Martin Sheen as Brutus!). In fact, the pointless setting shift -- to 19th-century Japan -- is as flawed in a play that spends most of its time in the timeless Forest of Arden as Papp's Brazilian-set Midsummer Night's Dream was. In both cases, the majority of the play could have been set anywhere, and little is gained with the shift itself.
Which isn't to say that the opening half-hour isn't pretty, or that the use of Sumo isn't inspired. And the cast is generally good, especially David Oyelowo, Alfred Molina, and (as always) Brian Blessed. Bryce Dallas Howard's Rosalind is better than expected, with the major problem being her inability (or Branagh's lack of desire to ask her) to play Ganymede as anything but excessively feminine (down to the coy giggles), without even a saving grace of fopdom to at least make "him" slightly believable. It makes you long for a slightly more convincing woman-in-drag performance, like, say, Joyce Hyser in Just One of the Guys.
I do adore, incidentally, Rosalind's broken-wall epilogue, and Kevin Kline does a fine job with Jacques's monologue.
It's certainly not bad, at all. It's not just breathtaking or all that memorable (and in fairness, "All the World's a Stage" speech aside, AYLI really isn't one of my favorites to begin with), and Branagh doesn't pace things all that well. Still, for Bard completists, it's worth catching.
It is, however, the worst of Branagh's five Bard adaptations to date, reminding me more of the stunt-casting Papp productions I saw in the late '80s in NYC (Look! Martin Sheen as Brutus!). In fact, the pointless setting shift -- to 19th-century Japan -- is as flawed in a play that spends most of its time in the timeless Forest of Arden as Papp's Brazilian-set Midsummer Night's Dream was. In both cases, the majority of the play could have been set anywhere, and little is gained with the shift itself.
Which isn't to say that the opening half-hour isn't pretty, or that the use of Sumo isn't inspired. And the cast is generally good, especially David Oyelowo, Alfred Molina, and (as always) Brian Blessed. Bryce Dallas Howard's Rosalind is better than expected, with the major problem being her inability (or Branagh's lack of desire to ask her) to play Ganymede as anything but excessively feminine (down to the coy giggles), without even a saving grace of fopdom to at least make "him" slightly believable. It makes you long for a slightly more convincing woman-in-drag performance, like, say, Joyce Hyser in Just One of the Guys.
I do adore, incidentally, Rosalind's broken-wall epilogue, and Kevin Kline does a fine job with Jacques's monologue.
It's certainly not bad, at all. It's not just breathtaking or all that memorable (and in fairness, "All the World's a Stage" speech aside, AYLI really isn't one of my favorites to begin with), and Branagh doesn't pace things all that well. Still, for Bard completists, it's worth catching.