Hamlet

I consider myself a bit of a Shakespeare purist and so put off seeing this film for quite a while. I really wish I'd seen it sooner. All the other comments here about the mangling of the language, cutting of the script to an almost incomprehensible extent, the kind of grungey contrivedness of the whole thing etc etc, are all true, but at the same time the film has little glimmers of something more. The film must be one of the shortest Hamlets ever, and moves along at real speed. The cinematography is beautiful and the juxtaposing of modern images with the text (eg Hamlet's soliloquy being performed whilst he watches James Dean, the rebel without a cause) throws up (almost in spite of itself) some interesting ideas of how the director considers Hamlet. The modern feel works surprisingly well (although it *does* occassionally jar), and throws up a lot of the themes in Hamlet as being particularly relevant today.

The acting is all okay, with a few amazing exceptions -- Liev Schrieber as Laertes really stands out, and Julia Stiles is good too. Kyle Maclachlan makes a very sinister Claudius, and Ethan Hawke is okay, although I couldn't work out whether his Hamlet was pretending to be mad or really was, but this film really belongs to the supporting cast who are all pretty sound.

Good, if you're in the mood for it. If you can't bear the thought of anything being cut or "reinterpreted" in a hit-and-miss way then avoid like the plague!

8 stars (if you like this kind of new Shakespeare) 2 stars (if you believe Hamlet should be done formally, lengthily and in tights)

Bill Murray doing Shakespeare is the cutest thing ever, it may be the first time Polonius steals the show. Incredible for the NYC buildings, streets, and upper class apartments, creating one great slice of atmosphere after another. The self-awareness of it makes it funny too. All those young 90s actors having fun, and McLaughlan as the King is so great and nuanced you somehow feel bad for the villain. A festive celebration of Shakespeare, cinema, and Gen X. So, films like this are a joke when they're released, hence its reputation, but in time they become works of art. One, because Shakespeare is immortal, and two, this era here of 2000 New York, this is a painting of nostalgia, from a long-gone era of history. It's incredibly fresh.

Otherwise this is the perfect way for young people to understand the play, how the casting gives you an immediate impression who these people are, framing the dialogue in a way that you always understand it. The irony when you get a good rendition you bond to it and don't want to imagine it any other way.

This is easily the worst translation of Shakespeare's work to film that I have ever seen. In this pointlessly, ineffectively, and inconsistently updated re-imagination of Hamlet, determinedly, overly hip cardboard cutouts do battle within themselves and with one another, using the text of Hamlet as the basis for their acts in a literal sense, but without even a hint of the humanity and insight that the original work gave us or that a new one could attempt to give. I have no issue with resetting classic works, nor do I care if an adaptation is somewhat unfaithful to the text; what I do have an issue with is if a movie simply doesn't work. At least Romeo + Juliet had some kind of emotion behind it; this version is altogether too detached to care about its characters and too clueless to remember that the story just doesn't work if we don't care.

Good points: Bill Murray as Polonius, and Kyle Maclachlan's Claudius, apparently digitally superimposed from another, better movie.

Nearly four hundred years after his death, Shakespeare continues to be the best screenwriter in the English language. This beautiful, moody, stylish adaptation of his greatest play is no exception. Another wonderful thing about the Bard is how his drama seems to elevate any actor willing to take on the challenge. I especially enjoyed Bill Murray as Polonius: his performance was all the more delightful because of the necessity of restraining his comic genius here; he appears always on the edge of cracking a joke, and of course doesn't, adding even more tension to an already extremely taught production.

But what I loved most about this movie was how it departed from the usual staging conventions (medieval costume, stone castles) to get at the heart of what the play is really about: a kid coming home on a college break and discovering that his uncle has murdered his father and is having sex with his mother. Ethan Hawke does a fantastic job in the role, giving us the brooding, confused, lovesick, and ultimately self-destructive adolescent that Shakespeare intended.

If I were a high-school English teacher, this is the Hamlet that I would want to show my students.

Usually contemporary updates of Shakespeare make me sick, but I had read good reviews on this one, and so I walked into the theatre with an open mind. Oops. There is so much wrong with this film that the bard would spin in his grave. 1.) Too much is left out of the original script. The whole graveyard speech, including the comedic gravediggers, is left out,and there is no insight into Ophelia's fate. 2.)Too many liberties taken. Bullets are hardly a substitute for poison. 3.)Although Hawke performs capably as the "prince" his character is overly somber. Even in his fits of "maddness," at least somewhat humorous in most adaptations, Hawke barely cracks a smile. His pain is evident, but way too overdone. 4.) Steve Zahn, one of the best comedic actors on screen today, is wasted. As Rosencrantz, hailed as one of Shakespeare's most humorous characters, Zahn could have stolen the show. Instead, many of the character's lines are either cut or delivered facelessly over the phone. 5.) I won't even begin to discuss the artistic quality if Pepsi One, or (Although the scene was cool) Blockbuster Video. The commercialism was way too abundant. The list goes on and on. No disrespect to the actors. All perform capably, with top honours to Bill Murray for stealing the show as Polonious. However, muffled symbolism (what does a jet in a blue sky have to do with ANYTHING? and "The Crow: City of Angels"? Two bad movies on one screen?) and sloppy direction sink this well conceived yet poorly executed boat. Stick to Branagh.