When I heard that Kenneth Branagh was doing a remake of Sleuth, the interesting but overblown and somewhat asinine adaptation of Anthony Shaffer’s play of the same name, brought to film in 1972 by director Joseph L. Mankiewicz, it seemed likely to be another Entirely Unnecessary Remake, like the Jude Law film of Alfie and all the silly remakes of 1970s and ’80s horror films such as The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Halloween. Even more warning was the fact that since his first film, an excellent adaptation of Shakespeare’s Henry V (itself an Entirely Unnecessary Remake of Lawrence Olivier’s impressive 1946 production), Branagh has done little that was interesting or even competent, either as an actor or as a director.
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