It's worth remembering that Branagh set his first scene, Derek Jacobi delivering the prologue, on a movie set. It was of course, a nod to and variation on Olivier's "Henry V," which opened on stage at the Globe Playhouse. It was also Branagh's way of announcing that his ambition was not filmed theater but movies. In the Fred Astaire film "The Band Wagon," there's a pompous theater director, played by Jack Buchanan, who announces, "There is no difference between the magic rhythms of Bill Shakespeare's immortal verse and the magic rhythms of Bill Robinson's immortal feet." Maybe Branagh's detractors would have tolerated him more if he were that kind of obvious faker. But he works on a scale that makes him impossible for them to ignore, and shuttles from Shakespeare to various genres (with varying degrees of success -- from the delicious thriller "Dead Again" to a nearly unwatchable take on "Frankenstein" -- with consistent confidence.

Is that a mark of ego? Absolutely. How do you succeed in the movies without ego? Movies of any kind -- forget whether they're good or bad -- don't get made via modesty. And the more ambitious movies are, the more brashness is needed to see them through. There have been great filmmakers -- Jean Renoir, Vittorio de Sica, Satyajit Ray -- who so fully empathize with the characters they put on screen that their genius seems modest, self-effacing. But they are exceptions. Branagh is so far a filmmaker with greatness in him rather than a great filmmaker, but he has the hunger and willingness to try new things (in the case of "Love's Labour's Lost," crazy things) that distinguish the directors with the potential to be giants from those who, no matter how well, are just getting the job done.

It's easy to understand the hatred (which I don't think is too strong a word) British critics feel for Branagh. He hasn't just violated the cardinal British sin of becoming successful, he's had the nerve to become a success in America. (Cliché or not, there is a very real British mindset that dictates that if the Yanks fall for it, it can't be very good.) It was depressing to see Branagh kowtow to that notion, apologizing for his success in the (deservedly) little-seen "A Midwinter's Tale," the story of a British actor who turns his back on Hollywood success because of his dedication to British theater. But there's another reason for the hostility of British critics, and it's rooted in the way that for many years British movies were conventional, threadbare cousins compared to the imagination and vitality of their American and European contemporaries.

Most of the talented British filmmakers who emerged, like Hitchcock, left England for Hollywood. And when a British film did garner acclaim beyond the UK it almost always had a literary pedigree. That some of those pictures, like David Lean's Dickens adaptations, were among the best Britain had to offer reinforced the prejudice, rightly or wrongly, that British directors were only good when the movies they made were connected to Britain's literary heritage. To many contemporary British critics, Branagh's Shakespeare films must seem like a confirmation of that prejudice. And so they champion the thin socialist gruel of Ken Loach and fall over themselves when Mike Leigh makes a costume epic as static as "Topsy-Turvy."

But unlike those "well-made" British films of the '30s and '40s, Branagh's pictures display a most un-British willingness to say "Look at me!" He has an appetite for color and drama and spectacle, a palpable exhilaration at working in the medium. And in some ways, in America as well as Britain, that makes him a man out of time. In the midst of the genuinely exciting filmmaking being done by the likes of Almereyda, Steven Soderbergh and David O. Russell, Branagh's ambition to bring intelligent and entertaining versions of classics to the screen can be dismissed as middlebrow. But in some ways, insisting that movies aimed at a mass audience can be engaging without dumbing themselves down, believing that audiences beyond the art-house crowd can be entertained by Shakespeare, is a daring move given the state of most mainstream movies.

- - - - - - - - - - - -

"Love's Labour's Lost" is a failure, but the sort of failure that could only be made by someone with talent. Much of it doesn't work, but Branagh's ambition and showman's instincts are very much in evidence throughout.

In Shakespeare's play, the King of Navarre has just announced that he and three of his friends will withdraw from the world to better themselves through study. This studious hibernation, of course, means no women. But just then the Princess of France and three of her female attendants arrive on an official visit. Of course, the men quickly forget their vows (though they try to hide that from one another) and the play ends after several acts of complications with the comic secondary characters, with the four couples happily paired off.

Now playing: Read all the recent movie reviews by Salon's critics