His new film is Much Ado About Nothing and it's clear that this is a more personal project of Whedon's. Yes, it features his usual entourage of actors but when you learn that Whedon shot the film at his own house on a very small budget in less than two weeks, it comes as a bit of a shock when you remember the last thing he worked on was the (hugely) successful The Avengers.
Anyway, I haven't read Shakespeare's play but I could tell Whedon was being faithful aside from abridging it and a few tweaks here and there. (Knowing his work, I'm surprised Whedon didn't adapt a Shakespeare play with more...death.) It's the small things that Whedon throws into the film that makes Shakespeare's comedy even funnier. (Character interactions and settings mainly, but they're still hilarious.)
Back to the actors for a moment. Admittedly, I'm not well versed in the world of Whedon, but all of the actors were right for their roles. They hit their marks every time and they're just perfect. Not bad since I'm only familiar with four of them: Clark Gregg (The Avengers), Fran Kranz (The Cabin in the Woods), Nathan Fillion and Sean Maher (Firefly).
I pretty much loved Much Ado About Nothing. Everything about it just worked. I'm also fairly certain that thanks to this (and my recent watching of Firefly), I'm going to be seeing more of Whedon's work.
My Rating: *****
I adored this movie when I saw it last year... but with everyone finally seeing it I actually want to question how much of it's goodness I want to attribute to Whedon other than being the catalyst for bringing all these people together. It's basically a page for page Shakespeare with a couple extra gags because we see them in a 'normal' house.
ReplyDeleteRegardless a great movie and hopefully it won't be lost into the ethos of films of the year.
I'm glad to hear this is good. I admittedly have trouble appreciating Shakespeare-speak, so it's cool to know this one is worth it.
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