HAMLET RATING: 6/10 --> Barely recommendable
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Regular readers of my reviews should know by now that Shakespeare and I just don't mix. I think that I was one of the few critics in the world who didn't care much for SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE (5.5/10), and I certainly have done my best to stay away from films which feature the traditional dialogue of the Bard. The fact is that I never studied Shakespeare, never read Shakespeare and never understood what the heck Shakespeare was saying half the time, so why bother? With those reservations in mind, I walked into this latest cinematic presentation of one of the big man's most famous writings, and came up with this...
PLOT: The President of the Denmark Corporation is dead. To everyone's surprise, the widow quickly remarries his brother soon thereafter, leaving son Hamlet wondering about the nefarious behind-the-scenes shenanigans of it all. Of course, when the ghost of Hamlet's dad comes to visit him with some more news regarding his untimely demise, it isn't long before everybody and their uncle begin to suspect Hamlet of going mad. Revenge, death and a lot of hip, modern-day gadgets ensue.
CRITIQUE: Decent enough for a film whose dialogue was mostly Greek to me, this movie scores points on style and acting, but ultimately runs too long, features one too many monologues and just completely lost me in the end. Strangely enough, I actually did enjoy this picture early on, with its modern day setting, its hip leading man, and its solid score, but as the film drove on further and further, I soon found myself straining to figure out what the heck was happening. In the end, I just couldn't get by with just the "gist" of the conversations, I really needed to know what these people were babbling about, but unfortunately for me, the dialogue was just a little too "Shakespeare" to decipher. Having said that, the film also seemed to lack the proper character development, especially in the case of Ophelia and Hamlet, whose "romance" I never really bought into.
On the other hand, I did enjoy most all of the performances in the film, especially Bill Murray, an actor who I was extremely skeptical about before seeing the film. In the end, he won me over with a sort of flighty performance of Polonius, delivering his lines with much authenticity, while still being able to inject it all with a little bit of that "Murray" charm. Julia Stiles was also quite charming and nice to look at, despite her character's lack of true involvement in the story, and Ethan Hawke certainly delivered a good rendition of Hamlet, the slick techno-geek with a little bit of a head case. I also liked the whole look and feel of the flick, which was actually shot entirely in New York City, but didn't care much for the pacing of it all. After a strong start, it seemed as though, every now and again, the characters would slow the whole thing down with long conversations with one another, or better yet, inner-monologues with themselves. Now I imagine this sort of thing might work in a play, or certainly in a book, but when you're watching people babble on about something which you barely understand for a minutes on end...well, it gets kinda lame after a while.
Of course, I would definitely recommend this to any true Shakespeare fan, only as to compare it to all the others, and even some non-fans, if you like any of the actors, who truly do shine in this film (yes, even Kyle MacLachlan was pretty good). Most anyone else could certainly miss this film and not worry too much about the impact that it will have on their lives. I liked it better than most of the other stuffy Shakespeare flicks, but in the end, this one just packed in too much of that ol' Bard dialogue, and not enough coherence.
Little Known Facts about this movie and its stars: Diane Venora, who plays the character of Queen Gertrude in this film, once played Ophelia in a made-for-television version of Hamlet in 1990. She also portrayed the character of Gloria Capulet in the 1996 modern-day Shakespeare movie ROMEO AND JULIET. Boy, she really loves that Shakepeare, eh? Actor Dechen Thurman, who play the Bard's comic relief character of Guildenstern in this film, is the brother of actress Uma Thurman, wife of Hamlet in this film, Ethan Hawke. Casey Affleck is credited as being in this film, but other than one shot of him on a television screen, I honestly can't say that I remember him being in any of it. I'm guessing that most of his stuff was left on the cutting room floor?
Review Date: May 30, 2000 Director: Michael Almereyda Writer: Michael Almereyda Producers: Andrew Fierberg and Amy Hobby Actors: Ethan Hawke as Hamlet Kyle MacLachlan as Claudius Bill Murray as Polonius Julia Stiles as Ophelia Genre: Drama Year of Release: 2000 ------------------------------------ JoBlo's Movie Emporium http://www.joblo.com/ ------------------------------------ (c) 2000 Berge Garabedian
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