"The Tempest"

***½

I'd have to say The Tempest is one one of Shakespeare's lesser works. Ultimately a comedy (because it's not a tragedy, and technically there's only the two), it amounts to a Shakespeare fluff piece; it's more interested in amusing than in moving. It still has Shakespeare's signature rhythm-based, beautiful dialogue, however, and ironically, contains one of his best, most beautiful, most insightful lines. After conjuring then dismissing a fanciful pageant of spirits, Prospera (the infallible Helen Mirren) begins to wax poetic about the nature of life. "We are such stuff as dreams are made on," she says, "and our little life, is rounded with a sleep." Wonderful.

Unfortunately, (I hesitate to use the word, but will anyway) visionary director Julie Taymor didn't seem to notice the ultimately frivolous nature of this work, and presents it here in very dramatic fashion. Best known for her Broadway work ("The Lion King", the much-troubled "Spider-man: Turn Off the Dark") Taymor has found some success with her Golden Globe and Oscar nominated films, Beatles musical Across the Universe and painter Frida Kahlo biopic Frida, but her first film, the Anthony Hopkins starring and also Shakespeare written Titus, remains her best. Presented with the same drama and visual flair she goes with here, Titus was profoundly moving, deeply disturbing, and visually stunning, with at least two images that have remained with me down through the 12 or so years since I saw it. The style fit that film like a glove. Not so here. The lighter elements often seem drowned by a heavy hand; moments that might have been funny are sometimes lost in translation. As a whole I think the film would have benefited from a lighter touch, and Taymor, who (admirably) always strives for the heights, just doesn't have it in her to tone it down.

But don't get me wrong, the movie's not bad. Taymor even succeeds with some of the more fantastical moments. When Prospera sends her spirit servant Ariel (Ben Wishaw) to torment her usurpers in the guise of a harpy, it appears as a large, black, winged, feathered, crouching monstrosity (featured in the top panel of the poster above) that distorts the very air around it and summons forth ravens with flaps of it's wings. It's the best image in the movie. And Ariel itself is quite a creation: sexless, it appears sometimes with the narrow, flat chest of a young man, and sometimes with small breasts (hence the PG-13 rating), and it divides into multiple pieces as it runs, flies, swims, crawls around the island. The cast (featuring Chris Cooper, Alan Cumming, Russell Brand, Djimon Hounsou, Alfred Molina, and David Straithairn) is mostly very good. Dame Mirren is of course superb, though I'd say Brand over does it a bit (not surprising, honestly), and Hounsou spends so much of his screen time either growling or whining it, combined with his thick accent, makes the fair majority of his lines indecipherable. There's no denying however that he, as Prospera's slave Caliban, creates quite a physical presence, in both the mannered, crouching body language he uses and in the bizarre but fascinating make-up he wears. Finally, the decision to change the sex of the main character (originally Prospero) is inspired, not just because it allowed the casting of Mirren, but also because of the way it alters the dynamic with her daughter (Felicity Jones). As a mother trying to secure a hopeful future for her daughter, Prospera becomes a deeper character than Prospero ever could have been.