Subheaded "A Romantic Musical Comedy." Under the guidance of Kenneth Branagh (whose air of authority deflates completely whenever Alicia Silverstone is permitted to open her mouth), this Shakespeare production has been updated to 1939, then punctuated with newly written newsreel plot summaries as well as with song-and-dance numbers -- not the Bard's poetry set to music, but old standards of the period, by Gershwin, Kern, Porter, and others. Thus, one kind of artificiality interrupts another kind of artificiality, and both kinds recede further into quaintness. The Hollywood-musical trappings seem rather like the spoonful of jelly to assist the child in swallowing the aspirin. Except a Shakespearean comedy is not an aspirin. It is a chocolate truffle already, and grape jelly won't improve the taste. With Natascha McElhone, Nathan Lane, Matthew Lillard, and Branagh. (2000) — Duncan Shepherd
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