In Julie Taymor's latest endeavor characters fly around supernaturally, balance on dangerously high precipices, and sing and jive to vaguely rock underscoring. Is this "Spiderman: Turn Off The Dark"? Nope - "The Tempest", Taymor's film adaptation and direction of Shakespeare's version of "Survivor: Prospero's Island". Except here Taymor's main gimmick isn't bringing cartoon characters to life (as she did so memorably in "The Lion King" on stage) - it is casting Helen Mirren as Prospero (here re-named Prospera). Pronouns are altered in Taymor's self-adapted screenplay: father become mother, sir becomes madam; but oddly master avoids becoming mistress and duke isn't swapped with duchess. Taymor parcels out the use of CGI special effects, mostly reserving their impact for Ben Wishaw's flighty and always naked Ariel. Locations are lovely and rugged at once - evoking a sort of sci-fi landscape where magic can happen. But the film's slavish linguistic adaptation (save pronouns) is also its undoing. In Shakespeare's Old Globe words painted the picture - no scenery, no costuming and few embellishments. In a film, these are in abundance, often making Shakespeare's non-stop verbalizing redundant and after a while - numbing. There are terrific performances here, but they'd be much more magical on stage. That is, provided the actors' health insurance is paid up.

but impossible to understand. Saw this at the New York Film Festival tonight and must assume that the soundtrack was unfinished because I was able to understand about half of the dialog. It sounded like a mono mix, so maybe it was a temporary soundtrack or was projected incorrectly. The opening scene: completely unintelligible. Nearly every word spoken by Djimon Hisou: completely unintelligible. Hope they fix this because there is much to admire in the film: Helen Mirren's marvelous performance (most clearly spoken and reproduced), the great Ben Wishaw as Ariel, the beautiful music, magical settings, visual effects and the beautiful costumes.