Many films have been made from the works of William Shakespeare, so it’s puzzling that it took long for a movie exploring the question of the man himself. What’s more surprising is that it was written by a man with just a handful of credits, including the insipid “A Mighty Heart,” and directed by the man who gave us the blockbusters “Independence Day” and “The Day After Tomorrow.”

And despite the high production values — it’s not often you see a literary costume drama with a big budget for computer-generated images — “Anonymous” is, sadly, just what you’d expect from John Orloff and Roland Emmerich. The film looks “wondrous,” to resurrect the wonderful word playwright Ben Jonson (Sebastian Armesto) uses to describes the Bard of Avon here. But it’s all style and no substance — a terrible tribute to the greatest writer ever to work in the English language (and perhaps any other).