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| Alexis Denisof and Amy Acker in Much Ado About Nothing |
Fleet, light, and lucid, Joss Whedon's film of Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing is made without undue reverence or pretense, which is pretty much the way Shakespeare ought to be filmed -- or at least his romantic comedies, which have so much in common with the classic Hollywood screwball comedies. Amy Acker, who should be a bigger star, is a pitch-perfect Beatrice, and Alexis Denisof is well-matched as Benedick. The obvious comparison here is with Kenneth Branagh's 1993 film version of the play, a more elaborate and star-studded affair, but Whedon's film, shot mostly in and around his house in Santa Monica, more than holds its own in comparison. It actually comes off a little better in casting Sean Maher as the villainous Don John, where Branagh's choice of Keanu Reeves in the role shows off some of that actor's limitations. The weakest casting in Whedon's version is Nathan Fillion as Dogberry, which Branagh bettered with Michael Keaton. Fillion is too bulky and handsome an actor to play the clown, and he struggles to make Dogberry quite as fatuous as he should be, whereas Keaton relished every one of the character's malapropisms. But as Dogberry himself put it, "Comparisons are odorous." Fran Kranz makes more of the somewhat flimsy role of Claudio than is usual, and it's fun to see Clark Gregg step out of the Marvel universe into the Shakespearean one.
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