Titus

Rating:
Summary: Gothic-Modern Nightmare
Review: I just finished viewing the amazing DVD of the film 'TITUS.' Julie Taymor (whose 'LION KING) I still cannot get tickets for but will soon! ) directed this amazing movie. It's an experience, all consuming for the rather lengthy dream that this film is. Kind of a mixture of a surreal, dark, and disturbing sequence from a Hans Christian-Anderson Fairy Tale and modern-day newspaper headlines, 'TITUS' is the ruthless and imaginative adaption of one of Shakespeare's lesser known earlier plays. If you're a student of Shakespeare *in college or a senior in high school* I recommend you renting this film as a companion piece to studying/ enjoying...yes, enjoying..Shakespeare!

Amazing set design and costumes resemble Greek statues come to life and warped modern art animated. And it's a guilty pleasure for us 'Hannibal' fans to see the wonderful Hopkins do his cannibal act *he even snaps at two of his enemies literally! * This movie has it all but is not for the squeamish, although the gore really isn't too graphic. Buy or rent it today!

Rating:
Summary: Really Awful Shakespeare Play Suddenly Made Cool
Review: People hoping to make their directorial mark on Shakespeare usually struggle to find a sufficiently wacky historical context to squeeze his plays into. Here Taymor just leaves TITUS in Rome, updating its technology and some of its clothing. The result may be fairly Farscapish, but it allows the play to work on its own terms, and the archaic text suddenly seems edgy and funny.

Rating:
Summary: Beautifully done
Review: This is an amazing movie. Anthony Hopkins is incredible in his role and even the violence is incredible. The surreal quality of the movie makes it even more enjoyable and it injects a certain beauty and poetry into the movie that was lacking in Baz Luhrman's recent take on Romeo and Juliet.

Rating:
Summary: Shakespeare Dynamite
Review: The other reviewers are right: this is a very very bold masterpiece. Julie Taymor pulls off the trickiest moments by taking the greatest risks -- and using brilliant actors working at the height of their powers with a REAL script. (Even Angus MacFayden, so awful in "Cradle Will Rock", is dead-on here.) You will hear and understand every syllable of Shakespeare's dialogue. Everyone and everything hits its target -- even a *baby* nails its moment. This is amazing for a film that doesn't play it safe. No tricks, no gimmicks, no flashiness, despite the impression given by accounts of mixing historical eras and the extravagant brutality. It's easy to describe the risks Taymor takes, but hard to do justice to her success. You'll have to take my word for it that despite the iambic pentameter, the armor alongside the punk leather, the Roman orgy set to swing music, the clowns who deliver Titus his severed hand and his son's heads in a circus wagon, the visions of humans as predatory animals and the cannibalism at the dinner party ambush, this film feels far more real and convincing than the usual streetwise smartass "gritty" b.s. Hollywood action picture. The film is so alive, so brave, so total and has such range that my sweet, gentle wife and I came out of the theatre feeling elated, not depressed, and saw it again.

And if you're as tired as we by so many movies with nothing but 20-something beautiful (usually white) actors living 20-something fantasies, then feast your eyes on surprises like Jessica Lange: maternal, sexy and dangerous in middle-age, and not intimidated by Shakespeare -- 20+ years ago people thought her a shallow ingenue -- or the electrifying Harry Lennix in what may be the greatest part given to a black actor in decades, an actor of such fearsome command, intelligence, and vitality he balances the towering, magisterial and heartbreaking Anthony Hopkins. And praise Taymor herself for showing what a chick can do with the most violent and hated play in the Men's Department, i.e., theatre's greatest male writer. This is a smart, muscular, dynamic show of humans at their worst. The only "woman's touch" is her use of young Lucius, playing with war toys then witnessing unspeakable crimes, finally carrying Aaron's baby out of the Colosseum into ... what? It probably wouldn't have occurred to a male director to wonder what this horrible world could do to a small son of soldiers who must take his place in it.

The era-mixing works. Mussolini wanted to revive the Roman Empire, so Taymor blends the fascist decadence of each; what registers with you is their *moral* consonance. It seems perfectly natural for Tamora's sons, Gothic boys of the forests bred to war in animal skins but now running free in decadent Rome, to degenerate into Eurotrash punks with their first-person-shooter video games, speed metal and predatory violence; it works psychologically.

Must quibble with a few other reviewers: Cummings is superb, but plays it nowhere near mad; his Saturninus is a canny politician seizing his moment. Hopkins won't bring Hannibal Lecter to mind; his Titus is an old warrior more interested in honor and a peaceful rest for his many fallen sons than in blood or power -- yet believes so in authority he kills his own son for defying him. His two fatal errors in judgment bring such horror he nearly goes mad from grief, but makes you feel what he feels, as if you might say and do what he does. The film is in no way "wacky": this humor is very very grim, laughter in the graveyard by characters staring into Hell. And if this is Shakespeare's "worst", it's relative: the play is full of indelible lines.

Weep with Anthony Hopkins as Titus Andronicus, hope you never have to look into your own heart for evils greater than those inflicted on you, just so you can find rest.

Rating:
Summary: The best possible film of really difficult material.
Review: I had really looked forward to seeing this film; I always like Shakespeare adaptations, and it's quite hard to completely muck such great source material up (although Branagh's Love's Labours Lost managed to). But Titus Andronichus is a 'difficult' play, with extreme violence and even more extreme black comedy, as well as such controversial issues as rape, racism, and 'family values'. Therefore, the film itself comes as a surprise, for several reasons; firstly, because it isn't all that violent; secondly, because it does a remarkably good job of bringing out all the contemporary nuances by deliberate anachronisms; thirdly, because it is superbly acted by such greats as Hopkins and Lange; lastly, because Julie Taymor manages to take the material further than a better-known director might have wanted to. The DVD is excellent-ish. Taymor's commentary is as useful and relevant as you might have imagined, and the isolated music score is good (although Elliot Goldenthal's score is a bit too 'Batman Forever'-esque in places). There's a good documentary, a useful Q and A session with Taymor, an interesting bit on the SFX and....that's basically it. Although it's really good stuff, it would have been nice to perhaps have had a documentary about Taymor's theatrical staging of Titus, or even the director's cut (some stuff was apparently removed to avoid an NC-17). Still, a pretty good DVD for the 2nd best film of 2000 (after Gladiator, with which it shares many themes, not least an exploration of the role of violence in our society.)

Rating:
Summary: Stylistically daring epic of violence and revenge
Review: Titus, the movie version of William Shakespeare's earliest work,brilliantly adapted and directed by Julie Taymor of "LionKing" fame, is an epic tale of violence and revenge. It acomplex weave of words and images in this stylistically daringproduction. It is set in imperial Rome with a few well placed moderndetails that enhance the production, using tanks and weapons from the1940s in the war sequences, a bubble top limo carrying a politician,and an orgy where guests drink martinis and villains are costumed aslipsticked and painted punk rockers.

Jessica Lange, her shouldercovered with a winding modern tattoo and wearing outrageous hairstylesand gorgeous costumes, plays a mature and sexy Tamora, theShakespearean dialog flowing naturally from her lips.

The concept ofrace is also dealt with in the person of Harry Lennix, a black Moorwho is Tamara's lover. His performance is superb.

I loveShakespeare. I also love innovation. Great acting. And lots ofaction. This movie has it all. And at 162 minutes, I never found ittoo long. Instead, I was caught up in a wild catharsis of emotion,the modern details enhancing my appreciation of the movie by remindingme of its relevance today.

This is the most violent film I have everseen, especially since the characterization was so good. It must havebeen violent in Elizabethan times also, but now there can be close upson the gore and surreal sequences with computerimagery.

Recommended. But be forewarned about the violence.

Rating:
Summary: Revenge is Sweet
Review: Great Acting, Audacious storytelling, Not afraid of the Dark.

I love films which are able to stare at the darkest side of humanity and even get a chuckle or two out of what is presented (Clockwork Orange for example). Julie Taymor (I can only hope she gets more chances to do this kind of thing) was not afraid to take big risks. For me the risks all paid off.

It is easy to see why some say this is Shakespeare's "weakest" play (some insisting he never even wrote it). The subject matter, human cruelty and the urge to revenge are not easy to acknowledge traits we like to speak about in "polite" society. The terms "morality play," or "good vs. evil" (who was good in this story?) don't make sense to me in relation to this film.

The Bard's poetry was powerful and accessible. I was engrossed from beginning to end by the visuals, the acting (Anthony Hopkins and Jessica Lange are magnificent as are others), and the visceral nature of the emotions presented. I believe the film is meant to be timeless and does not jump between Ancient Rome and Italy of Mussolini or any other modern setting. The "modern" young boy is a touch of genius. Doesn't anyone remember being or seeing children playing at war? Cruelty does have a human face. In the end the two youths are our only "Hope."

We have just entered a new century, a new millennium. The last century witnessed humanity's darkest hours. It continues even now. Despite our "progress" we show no capacity to control our need to destroy. Oh please, Mr. Shakespeare, Ms. Taymor, don't make me look at such bad things. Let's pretend, as Speilberg and his ilk would have us believe, there really is something redeeming underneath all of the inhumanity to which we've become so accustomed.

Rating:
Summary: BEST DAMN MOVIE EVER MADE!
Review: I can't even begin to explain how beautiful and clever this film was a film that just takes you to every aspect a film can offer This movie has everything you can imagine in a film. And what was shocking is a woman directed the film, considering most women directors haven't made anything as wonderful as this. Julie Taymour is a GENIUS! If you haven't seen Titus go and see it you'd be glad you did! OH I'm not actually twelve I'm actually a 19 year old with a brain. Go see Titus!

Rating:
Summary: DVD enhances what the movie gave
Review: (I had an advanced view of this dvd) Let me start off by saying - I went into seeing this movie with a big head...I thought the movie was going to be one of the best Shakespearean adaptations from play to movie ever because I had read the play before and love it. It falls a little because of the length - but Anthony Hopkins and Jessica Lange make up for the 162 minutes of movie. Victorious general, Titus Andronicus, returns to Rome with hostages: Tamora queen of the Goths and her sons. He orders the eldest hewn to appease the Roman dead. He declines the proffered emperor's crown, nominating Saturninus, the last ruler's venal elder son. Saturninus, to spite his brother Bassianus, demands the hand of Lavinia, Titus's daughter. When Bassianus, Lavinia, and Titus's sons flee in protest, Titus stands against them and slays one of his own. Saturninus marries the honey-tongued Tamora, who vows vengeance against Titus. The ensuing maelstrom serves up tongues, hands, rape, adultery, racism, and Goth-meat pie. There's irony in which two sons survive. The dvd is packed with many features including two commentaries. They are both insightful and informative. Their is a nice making of documentary that goes some what indepth in the movie but it's no Fight Club. Round of is the theatrical trailer. In the end..the movie(to me) was great! I would rather have extras on the dvd than none at all - so that was a plus. Bloody and vulgar, -- See it with a clear head..you won't like it if you don't like to hear about racism, rape, etc. etc.

Rating:
Summary: great movie
Review: I saw this movie in theaters and I was very impressed with it. The acting was great and the costumes and sets were very well done. See this movie!