Excellent, smart action film.

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

Great story, amazing characters, superb action, enthralling cinematography. Yes, this is something I am glad I spent money on.

Joss Whedon has taken off his brown coat and hung up his superhero costume for the time being to give us a laugh-out-loud and fresh telling of Shakespeare's 'Much Ado About Nothing'. With an amazing cast, comedy at every turn and an excellent eye for direction, Whedon pulls off this amazing tale with grace and fun. The movie's also different enough to stand on its own apart from Kenneth Branagh's version from twenty years ago. I imagine that fans of 'Firefly', 'Buffy' and 'The Avengers' will be first in line to support their hero, but I also expect this to gain a bigger following in the weeks to come.Whedon has set this classic comedic tale in the present day while still using Shakespeare's original language – similar to Baz Luhrmann's 'Romeo + Juliet'. It's great to see these historic characters live in the present with mobile technology, fancy cars and fun parties as this account of engineered love comes to fruition in a light-hearted and comedic light.Alexis Denisof (from 'Buffy' and 'Angel') plays the fumbling and charming bachelor Benedick, whose friends tell him that Beatrice (Amy Acker, also from 'Angel'), his friend with whom he spends a lot of time joking around, is actually deeply in love with him. The same is told to Beatrice separately, which leads the two characters to spy on one another in hopes of hearing the other confessing his or her love. This is all done in a slapstick manner that works on every level as the characters provide a bit of physical comedy in their quests.Claudio (Fran Kranz, 'Dollhouse') tries to impress the love of his life, Hero (Jillian Morgese, a bit player in 'The Avengers'), which brings about a few funny moments as well. Meanwhile, the villain Don John (Sean Maher, 'Firefly') plans to sabotage both relationships for his own enjoyment. He's not the smartest man, but he's very aware of what's happening around him, and Maher pulls off this character perfectly. Some of the biggest crowd reactions will come from Nathan Fillion ('Firefly') as Constable Dogberry. He and his idiotic deputies make mistakes and provide a treasure trove of physical comedy every time they appear on screen. Seeing Clark Gregg ('The Avengers') come down from his Agent Coulson role to play the fun part of Leonato getting drunk and dancing the night away is not something to be missed either.Whedon is a master with the camera, and this is actually one of his best photographed films. The angles and creative shots he uses all make sense to the story and are used for a precise purpose. It's a magical experience and I'd definitely love to see Whedon tackle other Shakespeare works. For someone who just made a $1 billion dollar superhero epic to follow that up with this artsy black-and-white movie based on one of Shakespeare's most beloved creations shows just how much range Whedon has and how successful he is as a storyteller and filmmaker.Not only will this version of 'Much Ado About Nothing' make you laugh and have a hugely entertaining time, it's also true to the original work. With amazing acting, a killer cast and stellar direction, this little gem is highly recommended.

Joss Whedon's MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING is something to see, a smart, elegant, fast-moving romantic intrigue filled with the spirit and surprise of the best storytelling.It's that rare film of a Shakespearean comedy that, without modernizing the language, is utterly comprehensible from the first frame to the last. Kenneth Branagh's version of the play was buoyant and free-spirited, but got lost for a time in the thicket of the bumbling sheriff Dogberry's verbal horseplay. It is a perennial problem with Shakespeare's lower-class subplots that their colloquial dialogue can, if the right care isn't taken, bring whole tragedies to a standstill. The Dogberry scenes in Whedon are not only crystal clear but are actually funny and able to move the plot along.It is also that rare modern dress Shakespeare that doesn't make a big fuss about the concept, but takes the ironies of the exercise as a given... READ MORE:http://osburnt.com/much-ado-about-nothing/

I thought this was a freakishly pretentious effort from the guy who brought us Firefly (a pretty good show) , Angel (a middling show) and Buffy The Vampire Slayer (a not so great show). I always thought that Joss Whedon did work that was one part groundbreaking and one part Archie comic books. He pushed his work but also pushed his audience in ways that were sometimes like lepton erotica. As if being smart was just a rumor someone made up but nobody actually was. The school I went to as a teen forced Shakespeare on students which is too often the way people encounter it. Shakespeare is best taken in small doses and this film isn't a small dosage- its a walloping huge dosage of it done in such a way as to make Shakespeare look ridiculous. The Bard' work is 500 years old and sometimes reminiscent of older work like The Decamercon written in 1335 by Boccaccio which is often described as the first novel ever written. Anyone who dislikes Shakespeare is coyly labeled a low IQ moron but most of the people I've met who are into Shakespeare are basically just upper class snobs who wouldn't know talent from a hole in the ground. This film is basically a hole in the ground.

I think this film serves as a lesson to everyone invested in its existence.While the polarized reviews range from idolizing to dismissive, only one aspect of this bizarre and grating example of film stands out as a highlight: Joss Whedon's 'Much Ado About Nothing' is saturated in the contemporary....I had initially planned to work through a bunch of philosophical crap in an effort to understand and contextualize how pitiful this film is, yet I find myself nevertheless fascinated that it exists. Let's see if we can figure out what's really going on here.Joss Whedon is a 3rd generation media creator. His Grandfather wrote for TV. His father wrote for TV. He wrote for TV, and now film. This is not a rags to riches story. His entire life, it's safe to say, he was groomed for success. His wikipedia biography reads like a real-estate pamphlet. The commercially-valuable pedigree and track record is impressive, and its corners are neatly tucked in.Let's consider the background to the creation of this film (previous creative output):Buffy The Vampire Slayer - a demographic-successful series that was targeted at socially- undeveloped adolescent males -- a perfect sponge for conventional underdog sci-fi/fantasy television Angel - even broader, more successful stab at the demographic - no regrets for that punFirefly/Serenity - same exact thingThe Avengers - A budget-appropriate melding of his conventional (read:generic) character interplay with the Marvel universe and it's accoutrement: This movie was successful to a broad audience BECAUSE of Whedon's conventionality. The Avengers is every bit as much a conventional TV entertainment spectacle as could be produced for today's $16 3D IMAX Hollywood business model. The avengers is good, but the fact that it is structurally a film has little to do with it's success.So now that we have clarified the commercial creativity embodied in the fan-followed Joss Whedon, and we look at his black and white "I shot this at my really nice house in 12 days with my buddies who also are in all my movies" re-interpretation of William Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing, we realize that this film has little to nothing to do with it's actual content.No, this film is a painful example of how this new hyper-commoditized Hollywood/television industrial complex currently views film as an art form. Joss Whedon is telling us that, for all the trust and love and support his fans have inserted underneath his feet to propel him to this level of success, that he honestly views the profitless, artistic, humanitarian aspects of film as worth nothing more than two weeks with a digital camera making a black and white recording of people reciting Shakespeare with almost no conscious intention of what that actually entails, at the house of a rich Hollywood white man.That's what this movie should have been titled."Here's a neat thing I did with my money at my house, and I'm pretty sure it's art."This film deserves five stars because I think people should really watch it and personally absorb the utter and complete lack of soul that results when you try to create something you really have no understanding of. Joss Whedon has a supreme understanding of commercial ingestion of narrative, but he has absolutely NO understanding of art.If you are a person that loves Joss Whedon's work, it's not because you love good stories, its just simply because you love watching television. There's really nothing more complex than that. He's really good at his day job. That's why Much Ado About Nothing is so bizarrely vapid of any character or purpose. That's why it seems to be a paradox. That's why people don't understand why "such a celebrated writer" could produce something that seems so.... bad.Thanks for the wake-up call, Joss. I was getting really complacent and accepting of all this ultra- expensive garbage that Hollywood has been force-feeding the consumer audience for the last decade, and your little hobby of a Shakespeare film is a really effective way to remind us that Hollywood's days of romantic and higher artistic intentions have been successfully erased by the desire for profit. This isn't an anti-capitalist rant, and we all know that Hollywood began as a business, but the exploring is now over, and it's now just a product.5 of 10 stars.