..............and I'd be lying if I said there wasn't some fun to be had with Director Roland Emmerich's pet project about the old literary theory that William Shakespeare was NOT the author of his plays but in fact another man was with the intent of using the influence the words in the plays carried into an Elizabethan power struggle. With actually very strong performances from the cast (especially Rhys Ifans and a tremendous Vanessa Redgrave), solid visuals and an enjoyable enough conspiracy theory what emerges ends up being a rather fun couple of hours of film that you would never automatically suspect was from the director of '2012'. Stratfordiand and Edwardians can have their debates and it's an interesting idea, but as long as you don't mistake Emmerich's brand of fiction for fact there's nothing too shabby about this glossy mix of Shakespeare and The Da Vinci Code.