Rating: 
Summary: TO RESTORE OR NOT TO RESTORE - THAT IS THE QUESTION!
Review: Criterion laserdiscs used to be top of the line. Their transfers were solid and their committment to extra features very compelling. One didn't mind shelling out upwards of a hundred dollars (or perhaps did, but simply reasoned the issue internally)because what you got for your money was far above what other studios were offering at the time. However, their DVD transfers have faired less well. Often Criterion is using the same tired print bootlegged from their laserdiscs, ditto for the extras)and this has yielded less than stellar results on the DVD viewing format with its higher resolution.
Hamlet is no exception. By now it seems a mute point to have to explain the tale of the Danish prince who would be king, if only he could figure out how to avenge his father's death and kill his own uncle. Royalty does have its problems!
This Academy Award winning Best Picture - produced, directed and starring Sir Lawrence Olivier is still considered by many (present company excluded) to be the definitive version of Shakespeare's master work. (I prefer the Kenneth Branagh version to this one.)
TRANSFER: The gray scale is good but the print elements lack fine detail and suffer from low contrast in many of the darkest scenes. Age related artifacts are everywhere. Edge enhancement and shimmering of fine details crop up now and then and is very obvious to the naked eye. The audio is MONO and well balanced, though there is a considerable amount of background hiss throughout.
EXTAS: An audio commentary and some junket stuff that really doesn't warrent the price tag on this disc.
BOTTOM LINE: Criterion should reconsider their stance in the DVD market. With every studio now offering special editions, Criterion's usual cluster of extra features seemed to pale in comparison. This disc is nothing to get excited about!
Rating:
Summary: overrated
Review: the text is butchered worse than elsewhere. And Olivier is just not the best Hamlet. The thunder during the tobeornotobe soliloquy that accomponies "ay theres the rub" and him shouting that line(?) are just plain corny and yuck. Branaghs a much better blonde and makes this film completely obsolete and useless.I also never like seeing that soliloquy come AFTER the fight with Ophelia, as it does here. The H+Gertrude exchange is a little sexier than most, and I like it.
Rating: 
Summary: THE BEST OF CLASSICS
Review: A few weeks ago I felt like watching a classic movie. The movie rental store offered a wide selection of classics but I remembered Hamlet with Sir Laurence Olivier from many years ago. So, Hamlet it was. As I stated earlier, I saw this production of Hamlet before. Also, I saw many other outstanding productions of Hamlet performed by top actors from many countries. I thought I knew Hamlet in details and did not really know why I rented it again. But, let me tell you, Sir Laurence Olivier knew and felt Hamlet better than anyone else. He did not play the role, he lived it. It was so good that I watched it twice in the same day and once more next day for the good measure. If you have seen it, you should see it again and, if you nave not, you must see it.
Rating:
Summary: I don't get it
Review: Olivier's Hamlet has worthwhile parts, but also some very awkward and stagey moments that make it hard to watch for the modern viewer. For example, he does some of the soliloquies as voice-overs, which means the *picture* can be just a close-up of him staring off into space or striking poses - for minutes! Also, he tends to build volume and fever over the course of certain speeches to end up YELLING at the end, and whenever possible climbing something and jumping off too, all with no apparent correlation to the words involved! Maybe this Hamlet's frustrated ambition is up there at the dreadful summit of the beetling cliff. Of the supporting cast, I think the Gertrude is strongest, although not very completely person-ized. Ophelia provides no equal match for the queen's sexual magnetism, Claudius is a fine bloated drunken tyrant, Polonius is very silly and doddery.
Rating:
Summary: Will the real Hamlet please stand up
Review: Olivier is a great actor. he brings a persona to Hamlet, a depth to his character, that no one else can bring. However, the rest of the cast he seems to be just making speeches, albiet great ones. Basically this is a filmed play. Even though many may disagree, I still love the Ethan Hawke Hamlet and my favorite Ophelia is Julia Stiles(maybe she because she looks like someone I could love, and she expresses modern madness). I do love this version, but it is by no means definative, as each generation will need to express the madness that comes with the responsibilty that the other world gives to mere mortals. As Hamlet says "the plays the thing", but as we know real life intrudes into Hamlet's "madness" and it ends tragically for all concerned. All people on a true spiritual journey battling the demons created by the sins of man and woman will identify with Hamlet and hopefully will learn that it is not the "the play" that's the thing, but life itself. We can learn from all our Hamlets', and Olivier is surley one of our master teachers.
Rating:
Summary: So Many Hamlets So little Time
Review: This review refers to the Criterion DVD...
Sir Laurence Olivier directed and starred in this 1948 Academy Award winning (Best Picture)production of Shakespeare's most tragic play. He also recieved the honor of Best Actor for his interpertation of the brooding Prince, making him the only actor to direct himself to an Oscar.
With so many "Hamlet" films out there, and there are some really great ones, Branagh's included, this is the one I would suggest to watch first.Although there is some editing of the story, Olivier gives us an easy understanding of these complex characters.
A Danish Prince, depressed over the death of his father, the King,the sudden marriage of his mother to his Uncle.The visits from his father's spirit. Ophelia, the girl he loves but spurns who sinks into the depths of despair. Her father Polonius. a wise man who spouts so many of the proverbs we use today("Never a borrower or a lender be."). The Queen, torn up at the condition of her son's mind.
Olivier has done an incredible job of not only directing the actors to some fine performances,but also with the filming itself. The scenes in the Castle make you feel like you are there watching this play.
There are so many good performances of Shakespeare's Hamlet,Olivier's is one of the best.
The Critierion DVD is a good transfer of a restored Black and White classic.Bright and Crisp. There were a few moments when the film showed it's age, but nothing to distract. The sound was decent.
To Buy or Not to Buy?.......Enjoy,,,,Laurie
Rating:
Summary: Tradition has its merit.
Review: Just as when you think about the Ten Commandments, you think of Charlton Heston as Moses in "The Ten Commandments" (1956). Everyone knows that Hamlet looks like Laurence Olivier. People concentrate on Oliver and may miss the great camerawork and atmosphere for him to work in. There are longer and flashier versions out now, many quite good however this is the one that will always come to mind. I will not attempt to interpret the meaning behind the story however most of the acting and all of the words are quite clear. If you are afraid of misinterpreting the play, take a course on it. Otherwise this will play stands on its own merit and you will be fascinated. Just a quickie synopsis, Hamlet's father, the king on Denmark, is dead and his uncle marries his mother. His father's ghost returns to say they dispatched him on purpose (murder most foul) while he seeks revenge he is also distort with indecision. How he acts with friends and relative to carry out his plans is the play. Naturally the word Criterion should alert you to both the quality of this version.
Rating:
Summary: Hamlet's Greatest Hits
Review: It seems almost heretical to say over fifty years after Olivier's Oscar-winning film has passed indisputedly into the realm of "classic," but the fact of the matter is that this is a badly butchered and tolerably performed adaptation of Shakespeare's play. Olivier and text editor Alan Dent cut the script to the bone, eliminating not only the character of Fortinbras (who is a common casulaty of the editor's pen), but Rosencrantz and Guildestern (who are indispensible to depicting a complete version of the story). Most of the acting is forgettable, with only Academy Award nominated Jean Simmons making any impact as the tragic Ophelia. Olivier is frankly wooden in the role, making one realize that Hamlet was never really his part and that posterity would have been better served if he's left this play alone and instead filmed one of his stage successes such as Macbeth or Titus Andronicus. Olivier's success comes as a director rather than an actor, depicting Elsinore as a gloomy and forbidding haunted castle. The drum representing the ghost's heartbeat is a masterfully effective device and the look of the film can only be described as wonderfully Shakespearean. While the virtues of the film are spotty, one scene must surely be ranked as among the greatest ever committed to celluloid: the duel between Hamlet and Laertes in Act V. It is hard to imagine any other production (stage or film) competing the excitement or tension of this compelling action, and Olivier's celebrated leap from a high tower to finally do away with Claudius is worthy of every platitude it has received. (Compare this to the ludricrous display of Kenneth Branaugh throwing a magic rapier from across the palace to hit a super hero's bulls-eye into Claudius' heart in the vulgar and miscast 1996 film and you'll see what I mean.) Olivier's "Hamlet" was an important milestone in it's day, but is badly dated and does not stand up well to more recent productions such as Derek Jacobi's 1978 BBC production with the pre-Star Trek Patrick Stewart as a magnificent Claudius (in my mind the definitive screen "Hamlet") or the filmed record of the John Gielgud/Richard Burton 1964 Broadway production (which is truer to the play's theatrical roots). Olivier's film is indeed a classic, but it brings to mind Mark Twain's definition of the word: "a book that someone praises but doesn't read."
Rating:
Summary: Mel Gibson can't hold a candle to this
Review: In comparing this version to the one with Mel Gibson, I can only say that Olivier's version has a classicism that Gibson lacks. I also definitely prefer that more Elizabethan style of dress used by Olivier to the Medieval and Scandinavian costumes of Gibson. This film is a class of it's own, which I think is only accentuated by the "black-and-white-ness."
Rating: 
Summary: Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are... nowhere to be found...
Review: If Kenneth Branagh is considered the ultimate Shakespeare interpreter post-Viet Nam war, Then the pre-war title usually falls to Sir Laurence Olivier. His HAMLET is one for the textbooks... Well, abridged textbooks, for this is a cut and paste job (like many stage productions of HAMLET). Several scenes and characters, like Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are never even mentioned in the film. These shorter adaptations often result in 'hammier' performances, as there is more to accomplish with less time and text.
But, I am in no way a 'Shakespeare' purist. I believe if Shakespeare were alive today and making films, he would cut his material as well. The film does look beautiful in crisp black and white. There are ornate backgrounds and settings but occasionally, the film finds just as much power with a plain black background. This gives the performer a real sense of 'at one' with the audience. Olivier does offer an intriguing line reading, but his performance lacks the youthful restlessness that drives the character. With a nice musical score and supporting characters that have since fallen to obscurity, this is an extremely worthy telling and warrants plenty of study... The DVD is preserved in its full screen setting.
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