Good but over rated

Rating: Null/10 (12 November 2001)

Good romance/comedy that has very good costumes and good cinematography.The production is above average in quality athough the story's credibility is difficult to swallow since it banks on the biography of true historical characters doing very unlikely things.One particular sequence that destroys the films illusion is the too unlikely scene where in Shakespeare pours his heart out to his love Viola who is disguised as a man as they ride a small boat.Shakespeare does not know the man is Viola despite them facing up cose and face to face in the small boat and the disguise clearly is not good enough to hide the man's identity.The scene comes away as funny yet at the high price of losing quality writing credibility.The scene is flawed because most people would assume Shakespeare would be smarter than that.There are many such other scenes to this effect.A film that demands CREDIBILITY to get to a high level of over all quality will loose quality points with out it.Still,the movie is good for it's genre and a must see for all the genre's fans and fans of Shekespeare,15th century enthusiasts,and big fans of the lead actors,particularly Paltrow who is a surprise talent to watch out for.......