Titus

Rating:
Summary: TITUS REBORN
Review: Julie Taymor did justice to this excellent play. Watch this film with a open mind, before looking for the opinion of scholars on the play (Harold Bloom is the worst).

Rating:
Summary: Stunning
Review: From the opening scene this movie captures the imagination. This movie makes people walking through your tv room stop and watch. It's a visually stunning movie. Shakespeare has never been done like this. Recommended for all collectors.

Rating:
Summary: Highly debated play, Highly debatable reviews among us.
Review: The play itself has been questioned as to the true author. Many considered the language and structure too simple for Shakespeare. And, reading the other reviews, I see it is the same for the movie. After reading a not too impressive, and well-quite simple play, what was done with this movie is utterly astounding to me. The cinematography and character developement are excellent. The vagueness and darkness of the script could have made a awful movie (and did- check out the original stab at this play titled Titus Andronicus), but the director and producer, in my opinion, did something marvelous with Titus. They made it human. Darkness, fear, death, and vengeance of the human soul are all exposed. Not to mention one of the best orcheastrated soundtracks I can remember. Rent it, then buy it. It's definately a love or hate movie. Personally, I absolutely adore it.

Rating:
Summary: TOO VIOLENT
Review: Much too bloody and violent. This is truly Shakespeare's worst play. I can see why I've never heard of it before. Ick!

Murder, rape and rampant violent. What was the purpose of this play?

Rating:
Summary: Julie Taymor is one to watch...
Review: When I heard Titus was directed by the same person who directed Lion King for Broadway, I was a little apprehensive. What kind of credentials does a person get from directing a kid's musical? Certainly not the kind needed to direct one of Shakespeare's darkest plays...so I thought. Then I saw a special on Julie Taymore (egg or something like that on PBS at about 2 a.m...) I couldn't have been more wrong. She was perfect. Visually, Titus is one of the most impressive movies I have EVER seen, and I have seen a lot of movies. The costumes, the colors--everything--is without equal. Anthony Hopkins is disturbingly good, as is the evil Jessica Lange. If you are a fan of Shakespeare, you need to own this movie. Now.

Rating:
Summary: A Time-Less movie that takes place in a Dream-like world
Review: A few things first. Yes this film is confusing, and the dialouge is not the best it "can" be. But this film which has no set time in the setting is quite interesting as it tells that no matter where you are and in any time period you are in, as long as there are at least 2 strong nations, deceit, tragety, and violence never vanish. Rome or the Goths are irrelevant, Rome can be replaced with the U.S, or Izreal or anything. This was a quite powerful film incorporating a significant amount of symbolism. I like this film but I think this film can be compressed quite a bit, and the dialouge as I have mentioned wasn't top-notch.

However there is one BIG problem with this movie,... It runs too slow and thus you will NEVER miss anything! so... this movie "might" insult your intellegence.

+forgive the horrible spelling and grammer ^_^;;

Rating:
Summary: Uncinematic Buffoonery
Review: Looking to reinforce the feeling you already have that movies are on a neverending slope DOWNWARDS? Check out this debacle of bad choices and revolting filmmaking. I am not a Shakespeare purist in any way: I relish the chance to see quality works of time tested merit brought to life through NEW and intriguing stagings. But Titus is an incomprehensible mound of garbage piled upong the grave of Shakespeare himself. The sets are unforgivable. Unbeleivably plastic, lit with the bulbs of discarded kiddle lamps. The art direction is altogether heinous, with its anachronistic microphones and automobiles. None of which have any meaning to the actual story other than "Hey look at me I'm a director and I made these wild and quirky choices that you are going to notice!!!" Still, these are not the fulcrum point of all that makes this movie bad. The most unforgivable crime is that the characters are made to stand as mere shadows of characters. When Titus makes a choice, you might want to suppose that perhaps he is making this bad choice for a reason. But Ms Taymor decides instead to forego any semblance of character development or motivation. instead she portrays him as a buffoon, doing this and that for no reason. (When of course you know he's doing it for Rome) And the same goes for Saturnine. We see him, through Taymor's eyes as a ohhhh dare I say it "Bad Man" and everything he does is so ONE dimensional. When truly, there should be more levels of treachery behind his face. ENOUGH. I have wasted enough time on this blight on cinema.

Rating:
Summary: Shakespeare's "Titus" Not For the Faint of Heart
Review: "Titus Andronicus" is widely reputed to be the most violent and bloody of Shakespeare's plays -- and that is certainly the case here. Anthony Hopkins is brilliant in the title role, and Jessica Lange (whom I ordinarily find fairly insipid) is brilliant as Tamara, Queen of Goths. The take on the play is very interesting ... the opening scene has a young boy in modern times playing with toy soldiers and eventually having a huge war in the midst of the kitchen table. Suddenly, a warrior on horseback breaks through the wall and takes the lad to a coliseum of sorts, where Titus and his troops are returning from war. The troops move as though their feet were rooted in place -- not unlike the way little boys move their green plastic army men from foot to foot. The boy, still in modern dress, is an observer through most of the play; this juxtaposition very clearly sends the message that war is not a game. This production is an absolute must for collectors of Shakespearean performances.

Rating:
Summary: Titus Shines
Review: This delightfully wicked adaptation of Shakespeares 'Titus Andronicus' was both visually stunning and amazingly well acted. Anthony Hopkins brought Titus to life and made him both loathsome and sympathetic at the same time. And the strong cast made Shakespeares "worst play" a shocking, disturbing but thoroughly entertaining viewing.

The play follows Titus through one horrific ordeal after another. The loss of his sons, the mutilation of his daughter and the destruction of his sanity. You can almost hear the crack when he loses his grip on sanity and makes the final plunge into a spiral of hate and most of all revenge.

The highlight of this show would have to be Jonathan Rhys Meyers as the Emperess's son. He is sickeningly evil yet undeniably sensual and at times down right sexy.

Well acted and very well directed, Titus is a garaunteed winner for anyone who doesn't mind a bit of old fashioned gore.

Rating:
Summary: Eating My Hat: An Incredible Piece of Work!
Review: Back in the days when Jessica Lange was sitting in an ape's hand, some 25 years ago I was studying a production of this play at the Oregon Shakespearean Festival VERY closely. It was a brilliant production and a formative experience, but necessarily almost unique: nobody gets to see Titus Andronicus. Since then I always chafed when anybody else who had even read it simply dismissed it, but that's the way it was. Now here is Taymor. Since I dislike video (and ape's hands), I'd dropped out of the movie loop years ago. But now, with DVDs, I'm catching up and if this is any indication of what I've missed, I have a lot of catching up to do! I knew from the first stomp of that Gladiator Ballet, when the hairs at the back of my neck saluted: Taymor has hit it right on the head, this is one of the best uses of the medium (theatre-to-film) I have ever seen. I couldn't imagine how I would ever be able fairly to appreciate another Titus Andronicus after being so "spoiled" by what I'd thought to be a definitive production, but Taymor's interpretation is every bit as nuanced, and as completely conveyed, as the one that so moved me then. It more than lived up to a youthful remembrance, even to these now much more jaded eyes! An incredible piece of work. How on earth she ever got it done, much less widely released, I'll never know, but thank god she did. Julie Taymor! Who, when asked what of all possible things she would like to do once her Hot Movie Moment came, said Titus Andronicus?? Surely this is Springtime for Hitler, no? An artist to follow: I want more. And Jessica Lange, I'm sorry for my general tendency to shy away from movies with Hollywood actors in them (even though that opinion had just been more than reinforced the night before with Shakespeare in Love.) I was wrong. Jessica Lange held her own seamlessly in this production. I'm not a particular Hopkins fan (Denis Arndt, where are you?:-) but that's okay, they needed him to make it go--I found that no one stood out in either direction, and that's the way it's supposed to be. That's the point. This is theatre complete, somehow on film (or whatever it is, digits, I don't know...I didn't think the special effects sequences worked, really, but things don't always have to "work".) At last. This is really gorgeous, Good Work. No reservations. Buy it. Buy this, buy this, buy this, it'll give you something to really LOOK at.