The greatest story-teller of all time now has a fictional romantic comedy spun around his life and his classic Romeo and Juliet.

Hollywood unleashes whale-sized Anglomania on none other than the Bard of Avon, William Shakespeare. The bard played by Joseph Fiennes suffers from writer's block. You see, he's not only out of inspiration and finance while penning the strangely titled Romeo and Ethel the Pirate's daughter.

That's when he's smitten by rich heiress Gwyneth Paltrow, who disguises herself as a boy to play Romeo (women weren't allowed onstage in Elizabethen England) in his play. How Fiennes romances Paltrow and battles her fiancee the Earl of Wessex (Colin Firth), rewriting his classic along the way, forms the rest of the play, er, film.

Shakespeare indeed seems like a play that strayed on to celluloid and director John Madden puts together a wooden cast. Possibly has something to do with Will's block. Lead star Fiennes has this perennially wide-eyed, startled lookabout him. And the overhyped, Gwyneth Paltrow wins Oscar for Best Actress, when she should have been Razzie frontrunner. There's more wood in this film than in the oak-filled English woods. The film is rescued by a supporting cast of competent performers like Geoffrey Rush as a harried theatre owner.

The Academy truly moves in mysterious ways. First overlooking Terence Malick's acclaimed Thin Red Line and Shekhar Kapur's Elizabeth then it's the seven Oscars for Shakespeare.

Stranger still is the Best Supporting Actress for Judie Dench in her eight-minute walk-on as Queen Elizabeth. Beginning with unflappable Bond boss `M', Dench has done these iron maiden roles for so long she could act the next one in her sleep.

To cut a long story short, Shakespeare is an average film and draws a few laughs. But was it worth seven Oscars? No.

Showing at Regal

-- SANDEEP UNNITHAN