Two adjutants return home from a decisive battle, with one aiming to woo their commanding officer's daughter and the other his niece. Both see their attempts at love thwarted, the former from external treachery and the latter from his own stubbornness. If ever a filmmaker was needed to craft a modernized Shakespeare comedy, that man would certainly be Joss Wheedon, director of The Avengers and Cabin in the Woods and creator of the Buffy the Vampire Slayer TV series. It's hard to view Wheedon's adaptation of Much Ado About Nothing (or was that the alternate title for Avengers) with anything other than cynicism or attempt to add more legitimacy to his career (not that it even needs legitimizing in the first place). The film is an ultra low budget treatment, shot in black and white mostly at one location, with a cast reciting Shakespeare's original dialogue that seems they have no experience in doing so. The film is dull for much of the way through, but does pick up towards the end, which has entirely to do with the source material and little to do with the cast and crew. With Much Ado, one gets the sense of a director riding high after his recent film successes and inviting his friends over to celebrate by making a movie
