Branagh is a Romantic, a director who amps up the volume in all of his movies. Shortly after making this one, he made Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, perhaps the quintessential Romantic novel of all-time. Branagh was married to Emma Thompson at this time, so the film is a commentary on their relationship as well.
So, Branagh wants to heighten emotions in Much Ado. Remember the slow-motion musical montage at the beginning: the men riding their horses, while the naked women bathe? Slow-motion is something you can do in film that can't do on the stage. A musical score is another. Nudity is yet another. All of these, packaged together, comment on our socio-cultural values of love: they suggest that it is highly personal, emotional, sexy, and melodramatic--less a matter of economics, as it had been at the time of the play's staging.
Also, Don John the Bastard is white and Don Pedro the Prince is black. How's that for a 180 degree shift in black/white relations? Much Ado was staged around 1600, the beginning of the slave trade. Blacks were thought as bestial in their passions, subhuman. No blacks were allowed on stage; neither were women, for that matter. So to have an American black actor as the highest ranking member in the film shows how far the English-speaking world has made up for its sins.
Also, I do believe that Keanu Reeves is the worst Shakespearean actor to grace the stage or big screen. His lip-lazy slurrings are an affront to everyone's socio-cultural values.
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