As You Like It (2007)

You won't be disappointed!

I don't have all the words right now but this film is a work of art.

There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

There are some excellent synopses of this story online, but in essence it concerns the love between Rosalind, the daughter of Duke Senior, who is usurped from his court by his brother Duke Frederick. Rosalind is forced to leave the court – accompanied by her friend Celia, daughter of Frederick – and live in the forest, where Orlando, who was lovestruck from the first moment that he met Rosalind, is trying to find her. As with many of Shakespeare's plays, mistaken identity is a factor – Rosalind pretends to be a boy named 'Ganymede' and offers counsel to Orlando, to help him get over Rosalind. Around this central story are other sub-plots of love, romance, and the search for happiness and meaning.In this version, the story is transported to Japan – this was a move which received mixed reviews. For my part, I thought it worked beautifully, affording some wonderful scenery, which was photographed beautifully. Bryce Dallas Howard was beyond stunning as Rosalind – she was luminous, and it was easy to see how Orlando became so entranced by her. Romola Garai played Celia, Rosalind's best friend, and was great in the part, amply demonstrating why she is carving out a career as a respected actress. In truth, it is hard to select just one member of the cast as stand-out, as they were uniformly excellent. Brian Blessed starred as both Duke Senior and Duke Frederick, and made the two characters very distinctive, showing the harshness and cruelty of Frederick, and the kindly gentleness of Senior. Kevin Kline shines as a melancholy lord, and Alfred Molina puts in a great turn as Touchstone, a court fool (jester of sorts) who accompanies Rosalind and Celia when they leave the court. Other terrific performances include David Oyelowo as Orlando and Adrian Lester as Oliver (Orlando's brother).I also loved the epilogue in which the fourth wall is well and truly broken in a lovely way. Overall, this was a delightful, colourful, romantic adaptation of one of Shakespeare's comedies, and I highly recommend it both to fans and non-fans of the Bard.

To score this play 10 out of 10 is an insult. It was so sublimely executed. Utterly flawless in its presentation of the flawed fabric of our natures. If Lucifer were to seek my council and ask how he might elevate his gaze from his pismire prognostications about the human condition I'd recommend he watch this and then try to grow up some. Many of us see the worm in the weave but we tend to imagine it lends it character rather than destroying it. Paradise is not paradise without imperfection for love requires weakness to grow in compensation. Humility is hard learned and best achieved in degrees of defeat. A man defined by victories is a shallow and fickle thing. I stand here amid all my defeats prouder than I could have been if I had won the world. Shakespeare rocks and Brannagh brought that out with a vastly accomplished collective of actors and support crew. The Japanese theme in an English wood worked so well one wondered whether Britain might not be better suited to becoming part Japanese.

Here's one of the most intriguing challenges in all the lands of imagination.Shakespeare invented much of what it means to be a modern human. But he did so in a very constrained way of communicating. The plays were all about language and geometry on how the come to us, and within that vessel he grew images. That sparseness was what allowed him to shape the language so finely, thus creating the poetic spins that find valence in us.Okay. If you have seen Shakespeare done as it originally was, you'll know what I mean. The plays work well when read silently or aloud as well. But how to translate to cinema? How to take something that is not visual until it enters us, and make it visual before it enters us and make the same magic?I love how people have tried. Most modern stage productions follow this cinematic challenge as well because now we are a visual society. Jarman, Greenaway, Luhrman and Taymor have done marvelous things with this challenge. Branaugh is from a different stripe, a sideways approach to this problem. He sometimes moves into pure cinema (Kate's mirrored Ophelia rant, the horses in "Much Ado") but he's primarily worried about stagecraft as theatrically defined. Here he does something different, something so ambitious I'm trilled to be alive for it. Its so clever.I did not see this at an appointed time, but stumbled on it after a discouraging day. In a sense, it saved my life. It really did. I watched the whole thing with one of those openmouthed grins.Here's what he did. He transported the setting to Japan and adjusted everything accordingly. Simple idea. No, its not just Shakespeare with different clothes. Its not just the plot fleshed out with some other setting. Its a translation to a visual expression. Japan has spent a few hundred years building, refining and constraining a visual grammar in much the same way that Northern Europeans did with language. We lose much of what we associate with the plays, that verbal poetry. What we get in its stead is something similar but visually rooted. To establish this of course you have to "show strong" in the beginning, and he does with a completely wordless intrusion, an invasion of guess what? A play!This Rosalind is exquisite, someone who knows how to shape the space around her the way British actors carefully shape their words. She anchors the whole thing, including an amazing epilogue. Really, you should save this for when you need your life saved, when you need to stroke down melancholy burrs. Though Branaugh ends with his familiar happydance, by then you will be ready for it, ready to fall in love all over again.Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.

I felt like I was watching community theater Shakespeare. The actors over-acted every line as if the audience wouldn't get it otherwise without long pauses and gasping. The editing felt like bad TV shows on the minor cable networks. But what had me most entertained was the pseudo Japanese theme which jumped in and out of an otherwise lack luster movie.Sorry all you theater grads that haven't made a living on the "craft", but I'm going to say this, even Shakespeare rattle off a few mediocre plays in his day. And this one tops the list. The adaptation was simplified and highlight to brilliant affect by Day Time TV quality acting, pretty pretty costumes, and a score that sounds like the the Disney Family After School Specials.For an okay actor, our director the hip to the current culture Mr. B seems to know little about the timing of dialog and editing, creating a film that is neither funny, dramatic, entertaining, nor relevant. But then again, maybe I'm sounding too film school-y, so I'll but it to terms that our general public can understand: This movie SUCKS! It is truly truly a waste to the thine Time. Indeed but in that kind, my lord, please feel free at your discretion. . . to watch a movie that blows sh-t up. It would be better stimulation for thy weary mind than this hack film.