An average movie

From time to time, you get a director above all known for one genre who would direct something completely different (the best example would be Wes Craven, famous for his horror movies who did make 'Music of the Heart' which couldn't have been more different than his usual work). Now, it was Roland Emmerich's turn to direct something else than his usual action flicks. Indeed, this time, he went for a very elaborate costume drama which he financed on his own. Eventually, while his action flicks were usually pretty dumb, I thought this one was actually rather complicated, probably too much. Indeed, if you don't have a good knowledge of the time periode, it will be rather difficult to keep track of who is who and what was their relationship with the rest. On top of that, I thought that Emmerich couldn't really make up his mind about the actual subject of his movie. Indeed, was it a hommage to the great genius of William Shakespeare's writings (even if it might have been actually written by someone else) or was it about the numerous political intrigues at the time? Eventually, it kept awkwardly switching from one to the other with a slightly underwhelming end-result. And yet, the whole thing looked great, the actors involved provided some nice performances and while it was focusing on the power of those magic words, it did work really well so I think it is definitely worth a look, in spite of its flaws.

6/10