The Baywatch Run: Renaissance Style, and Other Observations from the Hilarity That Is "Much Ado About Nothing"

Upon initially starting Kenneth Branagh's 1993 all-star film adaptation of Much Ado About Nothing, I was just going to write a little post about how hilarious the opening montage is. But the film as a whole became so over the top funny — both in the dialogue and the staging — this is going to be a bit longer.

But let's start at the very beginning (it's a very good place to start). If you want to watch the rather beautifully structure beginning, feel free to watch this video from the start (say what you will about Branagh, but his choice to start with the bard's own words before the actor/director/writer's images is incredibly respectful). If the hilarity is all you care about, skip ahead to about 5:36.



It's just a genuinely and generally hilarious opening. Sure, you could view the slow mo riding montage of the men returning from war as an emphasis on male dominance, but I see it as a rather delicious display of attractive men (Denzel Washington, Keanu Reeves, Branagh, Robert Sean Leonard) for my viewing pleasure, a la the Baywatch run - hot yet ridiculous at the same time. And the following scene of the group bathing ups the WTF? ante.

All of the flirtatiously cutting dialogue between Benedick and Beatrice is comedy gold, and the idiocy of Dogberry and the other justice-servicemen is as insane as Quince's acting troupe in A Midsummer Night's Dream. Dogberry's lines, "Marry, sir, they have committed false report; moreover, they have spoken untruths; secondarily, they are slanders; sixth and lastly, they have belied a lady; thirdly, they have verified unjust things; and, to conclude, they are lying knaves," crack me up every time.

But it's really the little things that made this movie amazingly hilarious...or hilariously amazing (take your pick). The mere presence of Keanu Reeves, so pretty in the face, with nothin' really going on upstairs. The creepy oil rubdown his manservant was giving him. Branagh's line inflections ("have ^you?", the peacock call) and silent movie-schtick with the folding chair. Michael Keaton's co-opting of his Beetlejuice speech patterns for Dogberry.

Thanks for all the fun, Shakespeare (and you too, Mr. Branagh).