I guess it was a little unwise of me to watch this one at this time as I kinda knew it wouldn’t be my type of movie. Even despite having meant to watch it ever since it came out thanks to the presence of Larisa Oleynik pretty fresh off “Alex Mack” (one of the best TV shows ever – whatever happened to her after “Third Rock”?!?), the generic high-school-comedy-ness of it didn’t excite me too much. I’m writing this a couple of days after watching it and honestly I’m struggling to remember any highlights. Julia Stiles is great as always and Alison Janney as “Ms. Perky” kind of does a Dolores Herbig from “Dead Like Me” a few years before that show aired. I watched it of course for Heath Ledger, and I’ve gotta say, it’s not exactly essential viewing in his catalogue.

I feel the need to clarify something I’ve whined about recently and here seems like the perfect place to do it, and it regards those movies that are nothing but technically impressive. The ones where the first thing you find yourself mentioning is how “beautifully shot” they are or how marvelous the visual effects were or how great the music was etc. I said that if you find yourself mentioning things like this before anything else, it’s probably not really a great movie. I guess that was a little harsh. What I should’ve said is, if you’re gonna make a movie like that, your name had better be Julie Taymor.

This is actually a lot more like Across the Universe than I remembered it, obviously not in story or anything, but inasmuch as its noble failings. The one shot I remembered from the first (and last) time I watched was of course that of Lavinia in the open plain following her disfigurement, the sticks on the end of her arms reaching out for her uncle as blood issues from her mouth over the camera. It’s still one of the most extraordinary images I’ve ever seen, and it’s not the only one to behold in these few hours.

After I’d first seen it, this scene and what follows made me think Laura Fraser’s performance was a lot better than it really is. In fact, it’s only as the mute that she really impresses me now – in the first half of the movie, her performance kind of collapses each time she opens her mouth, something in the way she delivers the Shakespeare lines that just gives away how lost she is amongst heavyweights like Hopkins and Lang.

And that’s kind of the movie’s problem too – luckily, the wobbly stuff here is mostly confined to the first half of the movie, prior to the scene where Lavinia is brought back to Titus. It’s also, it must be said, never quite as wobbly as the stuff in Across the Universe. The “everyplace, everytime” set-up jars about as often as it works – it’s at its best when the 20s jazz-style score sets up the travelling circus-like reveal of the heads of Titus’ sons, a moment that just about makes the many times it falls flat worth it. Alan Cumming jars almost every time he’s onscreen – but he’s Alan Cumming, so that too can be forgiven.

Ultimately, this is absolutely the movie to show disinterested kids to show them that Shakespeare’s anything but boring. Even I still now have to stop in places during this and ask myself, is this really Shakespeare, lol? Really? Reaaalllly?!?? The casting of Anthony Hopkins is almost cheeky; he of course is pretty much just Lecter again in the movie’s last hour or so. Do I care? Not a bit. This is one of the greatest revenge stories ever told – of course, I’d almost entirely forgotten the Sweeney Todd connection here, too, which extends far beyond meat pies – and Julie Taymor turned it into one of the greatest Shakespeare adaptations ever put onscreen. Right now, I think it’s second only to Branagh’s Hamlet in my mind.

I’ve been looking forward to seeing this again for far too long. I remember seeing this movie when it first came out at the cinema and when asked about it by my English teacher, the main thing I had to say for it was, I was surprised by how easy it was to follow despite the complete lack of real adaptation involved on Branagh’s part (I didn’t mention the fact that realising it was where The Lion King came from helped me no end, lol) – like, that was the point, to bring the full text to the screen for the first time. In addition to the 70mm film, those were the film’s main selling points. It’s kind of odd that Branagh was nominated for an Oscar for the movie, I’m assuming the only reason he lost was that he really didn’t do much in that department, lol.

Anyway, this really is Kenneth Branagh at his best – all his familiar tricks work without exception here and he is perfect as Hamlet … young enough to make the early stuff work (I have to say I love the Ethan Hawke version for that though – does anyone do angst better than he?), but also when he returns from England. Patrick Doyle’s score is fantastic, the set design and costume designs sublime (now I can’t wait to finally switch to HD and see it that way). I love the way it switches between the group scenes and soliloquies, so many times a character being left alone in a room and just buckling under a sigh, “Oh that this too, too solid flesh would melt …” being among my favourites.

There really isn’t a lot more for me to say about it. It’s one of those unique things, I find, you’ll either appreciate or not. Hamlet is my favourite Shakespeare play, and Branagh truly revels in the words here – in his speeches particularly, you can see with every line how in love he is, like he’s still discovering more with every word he repeats. The casting, the design, the music, it’s really all just gloss one what is already a work of perfection. I certainly won’t be waiting so long before watching it again.