Touches You

Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

The story-telling is good with flashbacks.The film is both funny and heartbreaking. You smile in a scene and get a soulcrushing revelation in the next.

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

While the Japanese setting seems like more of a gimmick than anything, this 2006 adaptation of As You Like It is treated much too harshly in my opinion.Bryce Dallas is charming and funny as Rosalind, while David Oyelowo is sweet and hilarious as Orlando. The two have excellent chemistry. Romola Garai and Alfred Molina are great as as Celia and Touchstone, the two funniest characters in this version. And Brian Blessed, well, he's always excellent and here he gets the chance to wear samurai armor in the opening. About my only complaint cast-wise is Kevin Kline as Jacques; he does not leave the impact he should and disappears into the forest scenery.The settings and costumes are beautiful, as to be expected from a Branagh Shakespeare production. The comedy is well-done altogether, though once the film is over, it does not leave the impression it should. I don't know, it's missing something that the 1979 Helen Mirren version had. Maybe it's because this version cuts so much of the material out in an attempt to make it more accessible to a mainstream (and presumably young) audience. Worth watching though.

SPOILER: This will not be a spoiler for most, but you should be aware that Brian Blessed plays two roles: the Duke Senior and Duke Frederick.Of the many reviews of As You Like It seen here, I have not noticed any that praised Brian Blessed in the dual roles of Duke Senior and Duke Frederick. He was breathtaking. Blessed is a recognized national treasure for his booming voice and over-the-top characters, but here he brought life to subtle passages, sometimes overlooked, and conveyed the contrast between the two brothers, complicated as siblings can be, as I have never seen by two different actors.His ease with the language made it equally understandable and natural to the point that the viewer can instantly enter into the characters' thoughts. His grasp of the meaning behind the words is so eloquently communicated that I sorely wished he was also playing the part of Jaques! I would love to hear his interpretation of "All the world's a stage".While his Duke Frederick brings nuance to the machinations of the villain, perhaps most impressive is his Duke Senior. The gentle wisdom and grace of this Duke is something not expected of this bombastic actor, but it reveals the great actor himself and opens the door of our expectations to see much more of him in future.

I liked this movie. It doesn't deserve some of the criticism it receives. If you don't want to see any variance from the Shakespearean setting then don't watch this. It's an adaptation, folks!! If, however, you would like to see a classic play with an interesting location change to spice it up,then this is the one to watch. The only real criticism that I have is that the Japanese references seem somewhat contrived. They never feel integrated into the play. The actors were fun and engaging. No long, boring monologues by stationary actors looking directly at the camera here. The monologues are still here, but re-imagined and presented like movie monologues. (The "all the world's a stage..." one is filmed bizarrely and, in my opinion, doesn't work as well as the others.) Overall, an engaging film that makes Shakespeare even easier to enjoy.

I cannot make up my mind whether the play is bad (it's not Shakespeare's greatest) or the film is bad (it's definitely not Branagh's finest hour). I think it's a bit of both. I went in with high expectations (after Branagh's Henry V, Much Ado About Nothing, and Hamlet), but hated the whole enterprise from start to finish.The music was poor, Rosalind was mis-cast, and the whole Japan setting was a really bad idea that did not work.I hope this was just an aberration on Branagh's part and he can return to form. He is capable of excellent work with Shakespeare's plays, but this is a bad choice of play, badly done.