National Review, March 19th, 1990
Swords and Bullets
THERE IS such a thing as revisionist filmmaking: a movie that strains, kicking and screaming, to be different from what it is recycling. The process holds obvious pitfalls, but the Henry the Fifth that Kenneth Branagh has adapted and directed, with himself starred, avoids many of them. It takes great temerity to compete with Laurence Olivier's masterly Henry V, but with the brashness of youth, the arrogance of a rising actor-manager, and the luck of the Irish (Ulster division), Branagh has dived in, swallowed a few mouthfuls of salt water, and kept afloat.
If Olivier sta...
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