as funny as Shakespeare

Rating: 9/10 (14 April 2006)

This stays very true to the spirit of Twelfth Night (to the extent of it being obvious from the trailer), and was immensely enjoyable to watch, with all the expected romantic confusions from the cross dressing, as in the original Shakespeare. Most of the characters are named for the equivalent characters in Twelfth night with some minor changes; Viola and her brother Sebastian keep their names, although she pretends to be her brother rather than assuming a new male name (Cesario in the original). Amusingly, Orsino, Duke of Illyria, just becomes Duke, one of the players for the Illyrian football team. It was well acted, and I'm still smiling now I'm home from the cinema. Maybe it had a little too much football, in my opinion, but one doesn't need to like football to like this movie.