Henry V (1989-Kenneth Branagh)
			First, a few hints about how to watch this movie.  It can be tricky to understand, so reading the play first is helpful.  Also, since it can be hard to understand, don't watch it late at night when you're really tired, and the worst thing to do is watch it at seven in the morning after staying up all night drinking Coke, especially if you haven't read the play.  But enough about my lifestyle...  This is the movie which made Kenneth Branagh (relatively) famous as an actor and a director, and it's easy to see why.  In a movie with no really bad performances, his still stands out.  The people playing Henry's old buddies from Eastcheap are pretty good too.  And Derek Jacobi is brilliant as the chorus.  He's another one of the actors who I would pay to hear read the phone book and so makes a wonderful narrator.  Speaking of the chorus, I really like the way he starts the movie out wandering around a soundstage-it fits perfectly.  My next favorite scene is probably the one revealing the traitors-nothing specific, just most things about it.  I like the idea of the flashbacks from Henry IV, though they don't come off all that well, especially the first one with Falstaff, which is a mishmash of barely related lines from Henry IV all pulled out of context.  And for some reason Henry's lines in that scene are dubbed in a voiceover, as if they're his thoughts, but Falstaff reacts to them.  Well, maybe Henry and Falstaff are telepathic.  I do like the way Henry stands apart from his friends in these scenes, predicting the tragedies of the movie's present time, and I love the horror in both Henry and Bardolphs' eyes when Bardolph is about to be hanged as they realize the decision Henry has been forced to as king.  He must separate from his friends, but there is clearly still some loyalty and regret in him.  (see my notes on the play if you care about my full opinion on this subject-well, actually, this is most of my full opinion-oh, well)  And I like Branagh's interpretation of Henry, the key part of any production of this play, in general.  The scene after the Battle of Agincourt is amazing, with Henry carrying one of his dead soldiers off the field and everyone else clearing off as a hymn plays.  Patrick Doyle composed the music specifically for this movie, and I congratulate him-it's absolutely beautiful.  The last scene wooing of Catherine are done pretty well too-Emma Thompson is great.  No doubt someone who actually speaks French would be able to find something wrong with her French, but I don't speak a word and so she seems fine to me.  Yeah, that's how I want to get married.  Sure.  That looked ever so romantic and fun.  I love the way Henry speaks so eloquently about not being eloquent (reminds me of Polonius in Hamlet).  This is the kind of movie that almost never gets beyond Shakespeare nuts like me, but it deserves better.  Don't let yourself, or your friends if you are one of the aforementioned Shakespeare nuts, be scared off.  Oh, and if you need a better excuse to watch this movie, the battle scenes rock. back to Henry V main / shakespeare / people / movies / books / random / jokes / star trek x-files / writing / quotes / poetry