Roland Emmerich may be best known for producing some of the most epic disaster porn this side of the Mayan apocalypse (The Day After Tomorrow, 2012), but he trades catastrophic earthquakes for large-scale Elizabethan England stampedes in his latest venture, Anonymous. Not that the premise is any less ridiculous: the film is based on the unorthodox theory that William Shakespeare did not write the 37 plays and 154 sonnets that have immortalized him in culture today.
Of course real truth doesn't necessarily matter here. Judging from the Radiohead-scored new trailer (how did Emmerich get them on-board?) the director's Shakespearean conspiracy makes for a thoroughly compelling political thriller, historical accuracy be damned. (Emmerich set Anonymous against a political backdrop -- the storied succession of Queen Elizabeth I (Vanessa Redgrave) -- because the original script he read eight years ago by John Orloff, seemed a little "too much like Amadeus.") The results are an amalgam of Amadeus, Shakespeare in Love, a Thom Yorke fever dream, and Roland Emmerich's vision of English upheaval -- all with precious few explosions. As long as a giant earthquake doesn't wipe out the old English countryside...
To See or Not To See: To see!