(This review may contain spoilers).
I never really liked Shakespeare plays as much as my sister does. I struggle a bit with the archaic language and I sometimes find them harder to follow. But when my sister asked if I’d like to watch this with her, I thought I’d give it a try.
I felt it was good how this movie kept to the play setting. There weren’t a lot of special effects, even though the events obviously didn’t take place on a stage.
Since this was based on a play, quite a bit of the romantic development was left by the wayside, in my opinion. It was good to see that the family relationships were shown a bit more and even if I didn’t understand all of the jokes, due to the more poetic language, there were still some fairly amusing moments.
It was interesting to see Rosalind choose to dress like a man and create a new identity for herself. It certainly seemed to add to the confusion of the movie! It was also a nice touch to see the two Dukes played by the same actor, made up to look like two very different characters. It was a bit disappointing that there was no reason to have the two Dukes in the same scene together.
I was a bit thrown by the wrestling scene, which began with the two characters basically… slapping at each other. It made it somewhat more difficult to take that seriously. Then again, it is supposed to be a comedy, so that was probably part of it.
I liked the elements of brotherhood with Orlando and his brother. It would have been good to have a bit more explanation about why his brother seemed to dislike Orlando so much in this.
Despite the confusion of this movie, it was still entertaining to watch and I managed to figure out mostly what was going on. The ending was fairly nice, too. And I did like the actors and actresses in this, even if there were only two I recognised from past media I’ve seen them in.
I can’t say if this is a true adaptation of Shakespeare’s play… but it was good to watch and did make me laugh in parts. And hopefully, it’ll help my sister with her college assignment.
Ink of Blood 