The story has two main strands. The first concerns Claudio, a young lord of Florence, who wishes to marry Hero, daughter of Leonato, the governor of Messina. This is complicated by Don John, the bastard brother of the Prince of Aragon, who decides to persuade Claudio that Hero is a promiscuous hussy who ought to be sent straight to a nunnery. The second, better known thread deals with the relationship between Beatrice and Benedick, two people in their thirties who hate each other and are therefore destined, in the usual romantic comedy manner, to end up passionately in love. The story is filled out with the usual parade of not very funny misunderstandings, complex verbal jokes and rough edges of nastiness which are difficult to smooth other.

The film looks simply gorgeous, shot entirely on location in Parma. There is a real film maker at work here, making each scene a joy to look at and producing something cinematic rather than literary, The opening scene is particularly inspired, with the male characters riding into the film in heroic slow-motion, like refugees from "The Magnificent Seven". Some of the acting is equally good. Ken and Emma are as fine as you'd expect them to be, and Ms. Thompson in particular looks incredibly desirable throughout. The cast of British actors copes well with the comedy, and Richard Briers is especially pleasing as a rather touching Leonato. It does, however, have to be said that a little bit of Brian Blessed goes a long way, and there is an awful lot of him in this film. As for the Hollywood imports, they are a mixed blessing. Denzel Washington is superb as the Prince of Aragon, giving a performance of simple dignity and handling the verse with skill. Michael Keaton is utterly bizarre in the comic role of Dogberry the constable, which is either good or bad depending on individual taste.

The main flaws with the film are the rather slow pacing and the performances of two key actors. Keanu Reeves is, frankly, awful as Don John. His verse speaking is atrocious, and he rapidly becomes both unintentionally amusing and archly camp. At one point, he climbs onto a table clad only in leather trousers and says, "I am a plain dealing villain !" Of course you are, dear. Robert Sean Leonard, as Claudio, is merely a hole in the screen, but as he has to play a bumbling airhead, he could be said to be ideal casting. There's also rather a lot of roistering good humour, which gets a bit much after a hundred minutes.

EIV have put the minimum amount of effort into the DVD release. It's presented in what the box describes, vaguely, as "16:9". Actually, it's letterboxed at roughly 1.66:1, which is the ratio the film was made in. But the transfer looks slightly cropped to me, with some scenes edging off the left side of the screen. Other than this, it's quite a nice picture, with rich, warm colours and good contrast. Some grain, but not too many artifacts. The sound is presented with all the majestic splendour of, er, Dolby Pro Logic, but it's not bad, considering that the film was made in plain old stereo. However, the dialogue track still makes Michael Keaton almost completely unintelligible and there are no subtitles to help out.

No extras at all, I'm afraid, not even a trailer. In fact, everything about the disc says "minimalist". There are, get this, a grand total of SIX chapters arranged in the five acts, plus end credits. Appalling is the only word for it. No subtitles either, and uninteresting packaging.

An entertaining film is let down by a poor DVD release. Ken Branagh is an articulate chap, so I'm sure he could have been approached for some sort of extra material. No effort has been put into this disc at all, and it's certainly not worth the fifteen pound price tag.

Mike Sutton