Amazon.com Essentials:
Very few films come close to the brilliance Kenneth Branagh
achieved with his first foray into screenwriting and
direction. Henry V qualifies as a masterpiece, the kind of film
that comes along once in a decade. He eschews the theatricality of
Laurence Olivier's stirring, fondly remembered 1945 adaptation to
establish his own rules. Branagh plays it down and dirty, seeing the
bard's play through revisionist eyes, framing it as an antiwar
story. Branagh gives us harsh close-ups of muddied, bloody men, and
close-ups of himself as Henry, his hardened mouth and willful eyes
revealing much about this land war. Not that the director-star doesn't
provide lighter moments. His scenes introducing the French Princess
Katherine (Emma Thompson) are toothsome. Bubbly, funny, enhanced by
lovely lighting and Thompson's pale beauty, these glimpses of a
princess trying to learn English quickly from her maid are
delightful.
What may be the crowning glory of Branagh's adaptation comes when the
dazed, shaky leader wanders through battlefields, not even sure who
has won. As King Hal carries a dead boy
(Empire of the
Sun's Christian Bale) over the hacked-up bodies of both the
English and French, you realize it is the first time Branagh has
opened up the scenes: a panorama of blood and mud and death. It is as
strong a statement against warmongering as could ever be made. --Rochelle O'Gorman
