Much Ado About Nothing (2012) - Review

If it hasn’t already been made exceedingly obvious, there isn’t one filmmaker that I adore, respect, and generally just envy more than Joss Whedon.  Having created three of my favorite television shows of all time (Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, and Firefly – Dollhouse has its problems but is pretty good in its own right, and Agents of Shield... well, I’ll be honest, I haven’t given a fair chance yet), he can really do no wrong in my eyes.  He could write the worst movie of all time, and very nearly has – twice!  The Buffy movie is absolutely abysmal in every respect, and Alien Resurrection is, while not the worst movie in the franchise, pretty damn terrible.  Some further research will shed light on why these movies are so bad and it’s not really Whedon’s fault, but I digress.  The point is, I’m with Whedon until the end.

So how is Whedon’s hand at Shakespeare?  Pretty good, albeit underwhelming, if I’m honest.  Look, nobody cares if I like Shakespeare or not.  That’s like saying I love The Beatles.  No one is impressed.  And I’ll admit, I haven’t read that much of Shakespeare’s work (maybe five or six plays and some sonnets, all told), but yeah, the guy was a genius.  Hamlet is one of the greatest works of all time.

And maybe Much Ado About Nothing is great as well, I dunno – as of this write-up, I haven’t read it.  And that was probably my first mistake going into this movie.  I haven’t even seen the Branagh version to compare.  Maybe that’s why this movie didn’t “click” with me like I thought it would.

Yes, Fillion is hilarious in this - just to get that out of the way

Let me say this first off.  It’s great seeing all of these actors again together.  We’ve got a who’s who of stellar Whedonverse albums: Alexis Denisof, Amy Acker, Fran Kranz, Sean Maher, Nathan Fillion, etc.  The cast, for the most part, is great, although I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the lack of enthusiasm from some of the other members.  I mainly noticed it from some of the actors that I didn’t recognize, but it seemed like some of them were less than invested.

Another fairly large, easily solvable problem lies in the anachronisms.  Yeah, the film takes place in modern day, yet it retains the same flowery 17^th century prose for which Shakespeare was so known.  This doesn’t cause any immediate problems that I can recall, but it certainly detracts a lot more than it should.  I know that this was likely done for monetary reasons to avoid having to buy an elaborate wardrobe for everyone, as this movie was made on a microbudget, but it really is to the film’s detriment.

Aside from that, it’s everything you’d think a Shakespeare adaptation would be: charming, eloquent and witty.  Denisof and Fillion in particular shine in their roles, creating some truly hilarious moments; Maher delights as the villain, proving that he should be in a lot more quality work than he is; Fran Kranz is charming as hell.  And, in the end, it’s pretty easy to forgive most of the film’s major mistakes, because after all, the film was shot in two weeks.