He was a renowned soldier, nifty violinist, defrocked priest, respected Renaissance-era philosopher, erudite writer and legendary, erm, swordsman.

Director Lasse Hallström unsurprisingly concentrates on this latter skill - the notorious lover and serial seducer who cut a sensual swathe through the lust-lorn laydeez of 18th century Venice.

We first meet the trouser-dropping lothario after he's worked his wicked way through a convent (if the nuns were once novices they're not now) - only to come to the attention of The Inquisition.

Led by religious zealot Ken Stott, they're keen to nail him for his Olympian levels of fornication... but he has an unlikely protector in the form of the Doge (Tim McInnerny in full Blackadder mode).

However, it's agreed Casanova must get himself married off or be expelled from Venice so he sets his sights on young virgin noblewoman Natalie Dormer and her impressive chest.

Then fate intervenes and the sexual predator finds himself falling in love with the beautiful Francesca Bruni (Miller), a feminist firebrand and pamphleteer - think Darren Day copping off with Andrea Dworkin. Perhaps not.

Anyway, she's betrothed to bumbling Papprizio (Oliver Platt, excellent), Genoa's lard king, so it's anything but a straightforward match.

The sort of good-humoured affair for which the term "bawdy romp" was coined, this may be slight but it's never less than enjoyable.

Ledger and Miller spark off one another amusingly enough although it's Venice - shot in all her regal glory - that's the real star, an achievement only challenged by a ginger-wigged Jeremy Irons doing his best Dot Cotton impression as an inquisitor.

At the end of the day it's difficult to fall out with a film that boasts the line. "Is his Holiness a fan of public executions?" to which the reply goes: "Does the Pope have a balcony?"

Tim Evans