The Magic Flute

Kenneth Branagh directs this adaptation of Mozart's opera, a theatrical fairytale about love overcoming adversity. In choosing to adapt The Magic Flute for film, Branagh's aim was presumably to bring Mozart to the masses. If this is the case, it has ultimately failed. Despite being given a glitzy facelift, The Magic Flute remains essentially an opera, and lacks the innovation to win new fans outwith existing opera lovers. Where as Baz Luhrmann got it spot on in setting his adaptation of Romeo and Juliet in Los Angeles, the decision to set The Magic Flute during the First World War seems odd, as the lavish theatre demanded by the characters and plot of The Magic Flute simply jars with the grim setting of the trenches. When exhuming an old film or play, the new version can either stay faithful to the original, or completely reinvent it - The Magic Flute is stuck awkwardly in the middle, so won't strike a chord with many, far less have them singing its praises. [John Fitzgerald]