A pity this version of Shakespeare's play doesn't grab us from the start, as Olivier's did in 1944. The comparison between the two is won and lost in those first few scenes. And the night before Agincourt seems to last an eternity in this version, before the film picks up with the battle itself. This is staged with pace and imagination as well as mud and blood by director-star-adapter Kenneth Branagh, as is the pleasing endpiece dealing briefly but amusingly with the courtship of the French princess (Emma Thompson with a convincing accent) by the English king, with the assistance of Geraldine McEwan as a chaperone direct from the French quarter of Tilling. But the pace of earlier scenes seems slow and the low-life characters merely dull and objectionable, rather than colourful and full of life. A purist's Henry, perhaps, it serves to remind us how stunning, sweeping and daring was Olivier's film, making this a commoner in faint pursuit of a king.


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