(Viel Lärm um nichts [de])
UK / USA 1993
d: Kenneth Branagh
Columbia Tristar Home Video (Region 1 us)
sc: Kenneth Branagh (from the play by William Shakespeare
c: Roger Lanser (Technicolor)
e: Andrew Marcus
pd: Tim Harvey
m: Patrick Doyle
p: Stephen Evans, David Parfitt, Kenneth Branagh (British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) / Renaissance Films / Samuel Goldwyn Company)
w: Kenneth Branagh, Emma Thompson, Richard Briers, Keanu Reeves, Kate Beckinsale, Robert Sean Leonard, Denzel Washington, Michael Keaton, Imelda Staunton, Jimmy Yuill, Brian Blessed, Andy Hockley, Chris Barnes, Conrad Nelson, Phyllida Law
pr: 07 Mai 1993
aw: Cannes Film Festival 1993 Nominated Golden Palm • Guild of German Art House Cinemas 1994 Guild Film Award - Silver Ausländischer Film
rt: 110:35 min
dvd-rl: 20 Jän 1998
ar: 1.78:1 (16:9 Anamorphic Widescreen)
sd: English Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround • French Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround • Spanish Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround
st: English, French, Spanish;CC
supp: SIDE A
• The Film
SIDE B
• Pan&Scan version of the film
If nothing quite matches the teeming, joyful, acrobatic opening high in the hills of Tuscany, there's much to commend in Branagh's pruned, international version of Shakespeare's troubling comedy. Washington is the well-meaning Duke to Reeves' splendidly imperious John the bastard, while Keaton and Elton are a suitably clueless Dogberry and Verges. Branagh and Thompson, as Beatrice and Benedick, seem on the whole happier with the romance than the comedy - but do a fair job with some of the best verbal jousting in the language.
— SGr, Time Out Film Guide
•••••
Kenneth Branagh's second attempt to popularize Shakespeare for the screen (Henry V was the first) yields a smashing piece of entertainment. The comedy was cut and deprived of its urban setting so that the whole thing could be shot in and around a 14th-century Tuscan villa, but the trade-off seems worth it, and most of the cast shines--I especially enjoyed Michael Keaton. Denzel Washington is sufficiently elegant to enable one to forget his American accent most of the time. Branagh may be the price we have to pay to get Emma Thompson, yet they're both more at home than Keanu Reeves. If you appreciate the effort to make Shakespeare comprehensible, the high spirits, sensual trappings, and juicy language of this buoyant, handsome 1993 production are pretty contagious.
— Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader
•••••
Lushly photographed and superbly acted, MUCH ADO brought one of Shakespeare's most finely crafted romantic comedies to a popular audience. Though he loaded the production with Hollywood names (alongside a fine ensemble of British players), Branagh's approach to the play itself is quite conventional; very little cutting or updating has been done to the text, and the cast perform in period costume; the interracial casting seems the only nod to modernity. Branagh's use of trendy extended tracking and steadicam shots is sometimes distracting, but overall this is a jouyous romp whose forced jollity is only occasionally wearing.
— TV MovieGuide
