WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 28.
Watching Kenneth Branagh spend most of The Gingerbread Man in the pouring rain reminded me of a great remark a Hollywood producer once made about the swimmer-actress Esther Williams: "Wet, she was a star." Well, wet, Kenneth Branagh isn't a star. Come to think of it, dry, he isn't a star either. Only in Shakespeare is Branagh a star -- his Henry V and Hamlet are both magnificent. But did you get a load of him in Swing Kids? Or Frankenstein? Or Dead Again? If you didn't, take my advice: Don't, unless you want to see some seriously bad acting.
Actually, Branagh isn't particularly bad in The Gingerbread Man, but the movie is. The credits say it derives "from a story by John Grisham." " From hunger" would be more like it....