Eric Stevenson It's kind of weird how what many people consider to be one of the best Shakespeare movies ever made was actually based on one of his lesser known plays. Scratch that. It was based on a true story based on one of the lesser known kings. To be fair, I'm pretty sure Henry V was probably the second most famous kind to bear that title, after of course Henry VIII. This is a story about the Hundred Year's War. Most people are probably unfamiliar with this apart from the fact that it made Joan of Arc famous. It was known for how the English won most of the battles, but the French won the war.Historically, that actually does happen sometimes. This movie/play focuses on pretty much every historical aspect you could imagine. I thought that the only thing it was truly missing was some sort of romance and at the end, guess what I got? What makes this film a classic is how beautiful everything looks. It makes you appreciate everything about Shakespeare and classic literature in general. Well, classic theater. I guess that can count as literature, right? I've noticed that Shakespeare used the word "thrice" a lot. People should use that more! It's quite long, but it's worth every minute. For all the drama, we also get some great authentic action scenes. The slow motion is used very well and it's great to see it being used in a battle before guns were invented. That was quite unique. We get a lot of discussions about royalty, religion, and many other relevant topics. It's great that there's so much going on. This is a great representation of history and all its violence. I'm still going to say the 1948 Hamlet version was my favorite Shakespeare film but this is the second. ****

Xander Seavy (RiffRaffMcKinley) Derek Jacobi's wonderfully proud, winking Chorus and Patrick Doyle's interesting (but barely) score are the sole redeeming features of this early Kenneth Branagh misfire. A gritty (in a BBC sense of the word) take on Shakespeare's mostly tedious historical play, "Henry V" gives far too much power to one man in the worst way that Branagh repeated so often to such bewildering acclaim. He not only directs and, rather pretentiously, "adapts for the screen" the words of the Bard, but also plays the title character. And sadly, he is by far no Olivier. The man has talent, to be sure, but it either wasn't here yet or it had fled temporarily when he took up this triple task. The only "flat, unraised spirit" here is Branagh himself, who essays a monotonous monarch with all the emotional depth of Keanu Reeves after an all-nighter. He even fumbles his one good instinct as a filmmaker: flashing back to "Henry IV" is an excellent way to provide backstory for people who aren't too familiar with the soap opera nature of some of Shakespeare's histories (which is primarily important here for the character of Falstaff), but the technique doesn't mesh with the rest of the picture. And why keep the Chorus? He's a purely theatrical device. He's there to tell us we have to imagine that we're in France or Southampton-- a necessity of the theater, in which all you can see is a stage and what's on it, but somewhat disconcerting in a film because the entire point of a film is to show us someplace we normally wouldn't see. Did he keep the Chorus to make his job, as a director, of sustaining our illusion that much easier? Whatever the motives (and no disrespect to the vibrant Jacobi), it was not the right decision. It's a boring, slow-to-evolve adaptation of a terrible, impossible-to-read play. (I am a fan of ol' Will, but his history plays are some of the most tedious dramas ever to plague the page.) If you're a fan of the kind of epic battle scenes of films as diverse as "Platoon" and "Gladiator," you'll definitely enjoy that aspect of the movie. Action-wise, it has its moments. But after a while, you just want Branagh to stick to doing one thing. Unfortunately, he's too self-indulgent to get that idea into his head.

TheLittleSongbird I like Kenneth Branagh's Shakespeare films, and Henry V is one of his better ones. The play is a very good one, and this film does it justice.Visually, it is very beautiful to look at, with interesting camera angles and great scenery and costumes. The music fits each scene very well and doesn't fall into the trap of being too melodramatic.The film like the play has a fine, compelling story that makes you feel all sorts of emotions, and the dialogue is wonderful. Branagh's directorial flair has a lot of vigour to it, and the Battle of Agincourt especially is very evocatively staged.The performances are uniformly good, Branagh is particularly impressive in the title role and the supporting cast are all fine Derek Jacobi coming off best in yet another one of his great performances. Overall, very well crafted. 9/10 Bethany Cox

dougmcnair This is the best on-screen rendition of a Shakespeare play that I'm aware of. The acting talent that Branagh brought to bear here is stupendous, with Derek Jacobi doing the best job ever as Chorus, Ian Holm representing the men in the trenches with wicked wit, and Branagh himself delivering a St. Crispin's Day speech for the ages. But... the most innovative aspect of this film is the cinematography used at the Battle of Agincourt, with most of the actual battle shot in close-up rather than the sweeping vistas we've come to expect from such films. We never see the ranks of the two sides drawn up for battle, nor do we see massed troop movements. All we see is the unforgettable looks on the Englismen's faces as they stand waiting to receive the initial French cavalry charge, followed by utter mayhem as the individual characters fight it out in the rain. This is a perfect device, since at the end of the battle Henry screams at the French herald that he knows not whether the day is his. At that point, neither do we, meaning Branagh has hit the nail on the head.The only reason I'm not giving this film ten stars is because the play itself is flawed. The scene in the middle with the French princess is a non sequitur, as she serves no function in the film but to be married off to Harry at the end. That ending could have been eliminated and would have made the play (and thus the film ) much better, because with it the last fifteen minutes feel anticlimactic. Had we simply ended it with the end of the battle, leaving the stage littered with bodies as in so many other Shakespeare plays, it would have been far better. Still, the rest of the film is so brilliant that the movie as a whole rates nine stars.