Hamlet

Rating:
Summary: Worthy effort, this unique version should be praised
Review: I think, before writing this DVD off as a fluke as many people on this review page have done, that everyone should consider the fact that the crew of this movie has done a wonderful job in interjecting the plot of hamlet into a modern day setting. This could not have been easily done. This play has always been meant for a medival/renaissance type setting, but I think this movie is as good or even better than the modern day version of Romeo and Juliet. Romeo and Juliet was more easily adaptable to a modern day setting than Hamlet. I think the director and all the writers of this movie deserve kudos for thier effort, and I think that anyone who loves this great tradgedy such as I, should see this movie. Sure, it is hard to picture Bill Murray in a serious role such as Polonius, but I think he is doing a wonderful job in trying to branch out from comedies, although I think that automatically jumping into a tradgedy such as Hamlet is a little far-fetched. His acting was sort of monotonous though, and it sounded a little bit like he was reading the script for the first time. Out of all the roles, even Ethan Hawke as Hamlet, I thought that Liev Schrebiner as Laertes did the best job in portraying his role, with the possible exception of Kyle MacLachlan as Claudius. Schrebiner did wonderful in portraying Laertes' sorrow for Ophelia's death, and his anguish in coming back from France to find his father dead and his sister mad. The fight scene at the end dissapointed me when he pulled out the gun and shot Hamlet. What was the point of the poison tipped sword then? It was hardly dramatic. It is supposed to be symbolisim when Hamlet kills Claudius with his own poison. It really dissapointed me. I think they did a wonderful job portraying the rest of the scenes in the film, save a few, but overall worthy of your time, as it was mine.

Rating:
Summary: A true tragedy. (That this movie was ever made.)
Review: This is one of the worst movies I have EVER seen. The actors are all wooden and seem to be reading their lines, not delivering them like they are a character in a story. Each great scene I remember from another version (or the stage), was ruined in this one.

This movie is indescribably bad. Not even Julia Stiles, who is wonderful in 10 Things I Hate About You, could save this travesty.

This refers to the DVD version.

Rating:
Summary: To Yawn or Not to Yawn, That is the Question.
Review: This is the absolute worst Shakespeare adaptation I have ever viewed; it was so horrid, I could only watch 45 minutes of it before I took it back to BlockBuster.The acting (?) was pitiful; Ethan Hawke meandered about the screen in what looked like a pointless daze. Claire Daines spent 90% of her camera time in an open-mouthed, slackjawed stupor, apparently attempting to garner an Oscar for Best Fly-Catching Performance. Bill Murray acted like he was still singing in a lounge on Saturday Night Live.If you can even get past the acting (?), there's the problem of the story - as in - where did it go? Quite a bit of the original storyline seems to be missing, making the title of "Hamlet" to be one of major deceit.Save your $3.50 and rent the Mel Gibson or Kenneth Branaugh version and let this one collect dust mites on the shelf.

Rating:
Summary: hey, don't knock julia stiles
Review: Since I have grown to love the modernized William Shakespeare's Romeo + Juliet (1996) so very much, I was anxious to see what I would think of this production of Hamlet.

Parts of it were definitely interesting. I really liked the way the fax machines and e-mails and answering machines worked into the plot. (For example, Hamlet read and edited the fateful letter [email] to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. Another: Hamlet's "Get thee to a nunnery" admonishment is followed by several other appropriate post-break-up statements on Ophelia's answering machine.) All of this fit into the film seamlessly.

I also loved Julia Stiles as Ophelia. I loved, for the first time (for me anyway) actually seeing her as an angsty teenager! I have always seen her portrayed in films as a young woman (like Kate Winslet) and wondered why her character couldn't convince exactly me. I believed in this Ophelia, in her hip clothes, wailing at her father's death. Ophelia has always been seen as weak-but how can we not sympathize with this Ophelia? What modern teenager wouldn't react the way she did to the loss of her boyfriend and father?

I especially loved how she fantasized about, long before it actually happened, her watery death. This was awesome because with this, this telling of Hamlet actually managed to surprise me. At this point in history, no one is surprised by Ophelia's drowning-in fact, we wait for it. (In Hamlet Goes Business, I was more than ready for that bathtub scene.) But when Ophelia stared into the swimming pool, ready to jump, I was truly surprised. I thought, "What is she doing? It's not to supposed to happen yet!" This surprise was definitely a welcome one. The fact that we knew, then, that she was contemplating suicide, also made it surprising but inevitable when she did. (In the play, or any other version I've seen, her suicide seems to come out of nowhere.)

I also liked Hamlet's character a lot. I don't like Ethan Hawke. But he brought everything I don't like about him to the character of Hamlet, and it worked. I mean, it makes sense that a modern Hamlet would be an angsty film student, moping around New York City in an "I'm-too-cool-for-this-hat" hat, delivering monologues into a camera that he delights in watching again and again. Hamlet's character has always been wacked. Maybe the problem with past productions is that he's always been played by a man. Making him a mopey, rich-boy film student made so much sense that I wonder why no one ever thought of it before.

Okay, but here's what I didn't like. The "duel" at the end was terrible. Everything else seemed current or even futuristic, but the duel was downright archaic. Then Laertes supplies a gun-making me wonder what the fencing thing was even there for in the first place.

I really didn't like the father's ghost. I think he was supposed to up the tension when he actually walked in and strangled Hamlet, but please. Seeing a ghost walk the hallways, delivering his sad, remorseful message makes sense. But when he came right in and assaulted, and hugged, Hamlet... that was just too literal for me.

I also keep looking for some significance with the ghost dissolving into the Pepsi machine. What's that supposed to mean? Death of a Corporate Icon? Spooky Pepsi?

Rating:
Summary: Hamlet.com
Review: Anachronistic versions of Shakespeare's plays have long been popular on the stage: there was Orson Welles' Fascist rendition of "Julius Caesar" and Stratford CT's "Troilus and Cressida" set during the American Civil War. I even saw a Wild West "Taming of the Shrew" one time. But up until recently, filmed versions of Shakespeare have been conventionally produced in 16th Century trappings, nothing that would have confused the Bard himself -- once he got over the shock of images on a tapestry moving and talking. This changed with a 1930's "Richard III" (1995) and a punk-rock "Romeo and Juliet" (1996). I liked both those films very much, and that's why I was eager to see Michael Almereyda's corporate America spin on "Hamlet". While I wasn't totally disappointed, I have to say that the movie is only about 50% successful. Most of the transition simply doesn't work, though there are some clever touches -- for instance, having Hamlet alter the e-mail on a lap top to doom Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. Also, after rejecting Ophelia with "Get thee to a nunnery", his repetitions come through as voice-mail messages. (The play-within-a-play is, of course, a home movie Hamlet has spliced together.) The acting is spotty. In the title role, Ethan Hawke is somnambulistic; and Ophelia, never the brightest penny in Shakespeare, has never seemed more like a dumb bell than she does in Julia Stiles's spaced-out staring. (You're not certain if she goes mad or simply gets stoned.) As Polonius, Bill Murray dithers around like he's visiting David Letterman. The best performances come from Kyle Maclachlan as Claudius, Diane Venora (who has played Hamlet on the stage) as Gertrude, and Liev Schreiber as Laertes. Sam Shepard is the Ghost, and his meetings with his son are unusually intense, not to mention tactile. The picture as a whole is not particularly intense, and the ending seems anti-climatic ("Hamlet"??!!); but there are ideas and perspectives here to hold the attention of a Shakespeare fan looking for variety.

Rating:
Summary: Best Hamlet Ever and I've Seen All of the Hamlet Films
Review: Director Michael Almereyda's version of "Hamlet" comes in as my top favorite and this is said after seeing Branagh, Olivier and even Gibson do it in films. Every once and awhile I have the wonderful experience of seeing a film on the right side, art side, of my brain. I have no control over when this occurs but when it does, it pulls me right into the movie. I oftentimes am fuzzy about film details after seeing it this way but the intensity of the experience more than makes up for it. I saw this in our local art house theater and my right brain, the art side, was sucked right into the film. I emerged at the end as if in a stupor or drugged; I was that bowled over. Certainly setting the film in high tech New York City at the heartbeat of capitalistic consumerism worked well for me. Perhaps it set the mood for this work though and no one has ever brought out the mood of "Hamlet" as well as it was brought out here. For once, I truly appreciated how depressed, alienated, and isolated Hamlet was from everything and everyone. This has always escaped me in prior filmed versions. The rage is palpable as well throughout. That virtually all of the characters are desolate is well evoked too. Ethan Hawke (Hamlet), Sam Shepard (Father's Ghost), and Bill Murray (Polonius)are all brilliant. I normally like the work of all three and this was no exception. In fact, it is among the best work the three men have done. I realize that many viewers are comparing and contrasting this with Baz Luhrmann's modern remake of "Romeo and Juliet" with Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes. Although I really enjoyed that movie, I cannot say it was high art so cannot compare the two myself. I really cannot think of any flaws and am excited about seeing it on DVD again.

Rating:
Summary: Great Adaptation
Review: This movie was great. Setting Hamlet in a Fortune 500 company (the Denmark corporation) was brilliant. Almereyda's cleverness was illustrated not only by keeping the film modern while using Shakespeare's 17th century language but also by using modern sights to transmit some of the same ideas as the original play. Having the famous "to be or not to be" soliloquy in the action section of Blockbuster was ingenious because it points out Hamlet's inner struggle with action versus thought, a major theme in the play. I also thought that Shakespeare's language was not as large of a barrier to understanding the movie as some would make it out to be. I felt that the lines were fairly easy to understand and were demonstrated by the action quite well. Overall, I thought the movie followed the play quite well, and it should be enjoyed by bothShakespeare fans and those who are new to Shakespeare.

Rating:
Summary: Interesting, Dreary, Confusing, Good Movie
Review: This is a interesting way to remake a Shakespeare. Its modern-day adaptation is a lot better than the Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes version of Romeo and Juliet, although, unlike Romeo and Juliet, if you're not familiar with the play, it's hard to understand (I would know.) It was good, had some really good performances, and I was able to pick up most of the stuff that was going on, but I wish that I'd looked over the Cliffs Notes for the play before seeing the movie. There are a few things that didn't quite fit right in present day and a few things that aren't really explained very well (almost everything that happened to Ophelia confused me). However, I still enjoyed most of the movie, but, again, I'd recommend having a basic knowledge of the play before seeing it.

Rating:
Summary: Oddly detached
Review: I found this movie oddly distant and detached. The actors are for the most part good and I was surprised how much I liked Ethan Hawke. But for some reason, the film never engaged me. I always felt "outside" the action. Strangely enough, the Kenneth Branagh version, even though it is twice as long, seemed shorter because it involved me.

The only exceptions were the scenes involving Sam Shepard as Hamlet's father's ghost. Contrary to some portrayals, you can palpably feel his rage at his brother's betrayal. I wish the entire movie had been as good as his scenes.

Rating:
Summary: Hamlet as a Rip-Off of Romeo and Juliet
Review: I've seen most versions of Hamlet available on VHS or DVD, and this is absolutely the worst. One reveiwer here has pointed out that the cast's inability to handle the language is most likely the fault of the director; I'd say that's true, but the inconsistency and superficiality of the vision is also the fault of Michael Amlereyda. The source of the problem seems to be that no one involved in the movie (with the exception of Diane Venora, who has played numerous parts in Shakespeare, even in Hamlet, before) has any convictions about the play, their characters, or Shakespeare. Contrast this movie with Baz Luhrmann's innovative Romeo and Juliet, and you'll see Almereyda's inspiration. It seems as if he just wanted to cash in on the Romeo and Juliet craze--he even echoes that film by having Fortinbras' closing speech read by a newscaster on a TV set, as the final speech in Luhrmann's movie is read by a newscaster on a TV set. I'm not opposed to modernizations of Shakespeare--I'm opposed to thoughtless rip-offs.

I'd like to list the movie's redeeming qualities, but can think of none. Diane Venora is always worth watching, but she's much better as Ophelia in Kevin Kline's production.