Amazon.co.uk Review
As an entry in the Shakespeare-redone-as-teen-movie stakes, Hamlet has a less obvious hook than most. Though the gloomy prince--played by Ethan Hawke as a 20-something clinging to student status because he can't cope with the grown-up world of power politics--is a youth identification figure, the political background, translated into a big business concern with Old Hamlet as the CEO of the Denmark Corporation, is beyond the gangland simplicities of Romeo and Juliet or the high school pecking order of 10 Things I Hate About You. Michael Almereyda, after two interesting horror movies (Nadja and The Eternal), offers what he calls "a rough draft" of the play, and casts very fine players in a severely abbreviated text: the micro-presence of some (Jeffrey Wright as the grave-digger) suggests a longer version was prepared and slimmed down to this quite tight picture. The actors manage a middle ground between the original and the new context: Sam Shepard's Ghost lingers silently beyond his stage appearances to emphasise the textual theme that Old Hamlet was a sinning villain who deserves his limbo; Kyle MacLachlan's Claudius is smooth, but conscience-struck in the back of his limo after viewing Hamlet's cut-up underground film allegorising the murder; Diane Venora's Gertrude is a radical reading that plays well, drinking the poison on purpose to save her son and at once innocent of her husband's murder but genuinely committed to Claudius's rule; Bill Murray, Liev Schrieber and Julia Stiles make a good unit as Polonius, Laertes and Ophelia respectively, though the text-pruning (and especially Stiles's vulnerable mad child) turns them into victims of a selfish Hamlet rather than culpable collaborators with the something rotten in Denmark. Hawke's prince is the sketchiest reading but his knitted hat and messy student workstation make sense and he is a credible post-adolescent ditherer. This Hamlet, who has to be convinced of his uncle's guilt and that he ought to take revenge, never quite comes round to the brutal eye-for-an-eye logic of his father. The settings are steely hotel ballrooms (the coronation is translated to a press conference) and other inventively co-opted New York locales: Ophelia drowns in a huge lobby fountain, her mad scene is at a reception in the Guggenheim, the "to be or not to be" speech is delivered in the aisles of Blockbuster Video (as Hamlet prowls the Action section). Deliberately imperfect but far more interesting (and exciting) than the recent Mel Gibson and Kenneth Branagh embalmings of the play, this is a rare and welcome Hamlet that sets out to be an addition to the debate rather than a definitive reading. --Kim Newman
Customer Reviews:
Excellent.......2008-02-04
Fresh, vibrant contemporary adaptation and perfectly transposed to the millenium of New York City.
Superb cast and sublime acting.
Brilliant concept - Poorly executed.......2007-11-25
When I first became aware of this version of Hamlet, I was intensely intrigued. What a brilliant idea to bring it to modern-day Manhattan, with the CEO of the Denmark Corporation murdered by his brother, Polonius as the MD, and Hamlet seeking revenge for his family's lax moral standards. The use of modern technology would, I thought, only add to the film's brilliance, for example Hamlet being sent to England by aeroplane and finding the reason for the trip from his friends' laptop whilst mid-flight. Fantastic!
But, oh dear! What has the director gone and done? He has filmed turn-of-the-century New York as the setting, but used original Shakespearean dialogue from sixteenth-century London. How crass! The incongruity between dialogue and setting demonstrates a real mistake, and surely answers for the poor box-office returns. The falseness of the merging of the two worlds also has the unfortunate effect of making the characters appear to have no depth, for you are constantly having to suspend your belief in the integrity of the film as a whole. If only the director had translated the play's words into modern-day meaning, and then the film would have been whole and we could have thoroughly enjoyed Ethan Hawke's fine introspective performance.
There are a number of other quibbles. For instance, Kyle MacLachlan as Claudius has a reduced role, and I would have changed the final sword-fight between Hamlet and Laertes set on top of the company's downtown skyscraper into something less artificial; maybe a computer-game competition? The editing is also poor in places.
But as a whole, I did enjoy the concept and would not discourage others from watching this movie. It has a real-time-and-motion feel to it, and there are some fine performances. Bill Murray is a sympathetic Polonius. I never knew that Liev Schreiber (Laertes) and Julia Stiles (Ophelia) could act so well, and Diane Venora is wonderful as Gertrude.
Overall, then, only three stars for this film. By bringing Hamlet into the eve of the twenty-first century, the director left one foot still in the sixteenth. The result is a disjointed interpretation.
Much better than might be expected.......2007-03-20
Some reviewers have complained about the acting and the casting for this modern dress Hamlet. Clearly Bill Murray as Polonius is something of a joke. He is competent in speaking his lines, but he might have achieved a better effect had he played the part for laughs. (Although The Bard certainly would not have liked that.) Polonius is paradoxically a figure of ridicule because of his pomposity while at the same time he is the repository of some ancient wisdom. It's a delicate part to play and I don't think Bill Murray got it right.
And then there is Julia Stiles as Ophelia. I thought she was competent, but failed to project the sort of distracted, suicidal imbalance that the part demands. And why didn't they let her sing the ditty instead of just pronouncing it before the king and queen in the mad scene? If Stiles can't sing a little (and it only requires the thinnest of voices) maybe she shouldn't have played Ophelia.
Kyle MacLachlan played Claudius as an Enron-type CEO, merciless in his greed and malevolent in his desire to secure his hold on the corporate reins of power. The prayerful scene (overheard by Hamlet) in which Claudius remarks aloud that his "words fly up," but his "thoughts remain below" is done in the backseat of a limo driven by Hamlet! In Shakespeare's play, Hamlet does not kill the king at that moment because Claudius's soul might very well go to heaven since he is in prayer. Recall that the ghost of Hamlet's father complains that he was murdered with "no reckoning made," but with all his "imperfections" (sins) still upon his head.
Most questionable to some is Ethan Hawke as the "sweet prince." But I thought he did an excellent job and was very like a 21st century, privileged American (a secular "prince") pretending to be going crazy. And I am sure that the Ophelias in the audience thought he was just wonderful.
Certainly there can be little criticism of Diane Venora who played Gertrude to a tee. Incidentally the queen's chamber scene worked wonderfully well with Hawke becoming well the son disgusted with his mother, and she, seeing her tragic failings in her son's eyes, becoming the very embodiment of shame.
I also liked Karl Geary as Hamlet's loyal friend Horatio. I thought it was interesting that here he has a silent girlfriend who is almost always with him. (She's silent because Shakespeare wrote no lines for her!)
But putting all that aside, what I think is wonderful about this production is that it worked! Modern Hamlet in New York City, the "king" really the CEO of a Danish corporation, the kingdom, that corporation, the castle, its New York corporate headquarters. How simple. But would it play? And what adjustments and cuts and pastes would have to be performed on Shakespeare's immortal script? Well, practically none. A lot was cut out, but almost all productions of Hamlet leave out a lot, c.f., Olivier's Academy Award-winning film from 1948; Zeffirelli's 1989 Hamlet light starring Mel Gibson, etc. The most notable exception is Branagh's magnificent Hamlet from 1996 in which nary a word was cut from the text of the play. If you really want to experience Shakespeare's Hamlet at its best and fullest, see that Hamlet from 1996 starring Kenneth Branagh, Kate Winslet, Julie Christie and Derek Jacobi. You can read along as you watch it. (See my review.)
Here we have selected speeches played over a backdrop of modern life in the Big Apple. Every word is from Shakespeare with the exception of a couple of things seen on TV. A security guard plays Marcellus; Fortinbras' army in the background is a rival corporation seen in newspaper headlines; the drape behind which the ill-fated counselor hides only to be stabbed by Hamlet becomes here a hotel closet with mirror through which Hamlet fires a bullet so that Polonius becomes indeed "still."
There is a sword fight at the end as in the great play, between Laertes (Liev Schreiber, who brings some welcome subtlety to the role) and Hamlet. It seems natural in a sense because both privileged young men could have taken fencing at prep school and university. There is no bubbling brook across which Ophelia lies. Instead she finds her quietus in the hotel's fountain.
The graveyard scene in which the skull of "Yorick--I knew him well!" is unearthed is skipped over, probably because the tit-for-tat between Hamlet and the gravedigger would not make much sense to modern audiences. (Laertes still jumps into Ophelia's grave, but I must say without the full bravado that Shakespeare intended.)
I guess I liked this more than others because I expected a lot less and was pleasantly surprised. Part of the power of the production comes from the close camera work on the faces of the players--something that surely would have delighted Elizabethan audiences--particularly when listening to some of the longer speeches. The trick in all of this is to make the Shakespearean speeches sound natural and very like what people today might say. I thought that Michael Almereyda, who wrote the adaptation and directed, pulled this off very well.
For those of you who are high school teachers, I highly recommend that you show this to your classes. It will definitely help your students toward an appreciation of this great and timeless play. (And then show them the Branagh film.)
From a student (sorry).......2007-01-17
I have to say, I think other reviewers are being unfair about the abridgement - yes, large amounts of the play are cut, but the essence is definitely still entact. This is not theatre - I doubt even the most ardent Hamlet fan would be giving good reviews for a filmed version that lasted well over 3 hours. I'm a teenager and I thoroughly enjoyed this, but I don't think it's because it's put into a modern context I can 'understand' and 'relate' to - I loved reading the original text and simply feel this is a worthy interpretation. (Oh, and a note on Julia Stiles being a 'boring Ophelia' - any actress would struggle to inject high emotion into this character what with her scant dialogue - I say Julia Stiles did well!)
Come on...it's not that bad.......2006-09-20
Studying Hamlet for my English Lterature A Level, I was interested to see what this had to offer, having struggled through the first quarter of an hour of Branagh's excessively visual waste of time before turning it off. I was pleasantly surprised by this one, the verse is intact, albeit quite a bit cut, the words are clear, and I don't think the technical gimmickry is any kind of impediment to the text, as one theatre director told me and I ferevently believe, for Shakespeare, the words are more important than anything else.
DVD:
- Hi-De-Hi - Series 5 And 6
- It's the Easter Beagle, Charlie Brown [1974] (REGION 1) (NTSC)
- Jailhouse Rock [HD DVD] [1957] [US Import]
- Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius Dvd [2002]
- Jimmy Neutron - Jet Fusion
- Jolson Story [1946] (REGION 1) (NTSC)
- Jubilee - Criterion Collection [1978] (REGION 1) (NTSC)
- Junior Jazz [2001]
- Justice League Unlimited: Seasons One and Two (REGION 1) (NTSC)
- Justice League Unlimited: Seasons One and Two (REGION 1) (NTSC)
DVD List
DVD
![Hamlet [2000] (REGION 1) (NTSC)](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/2138B92PJCL.jpg)
All Drama
|
Drama
|
Categories
|
DVD
|
Video
![Hamlet [1991]](http://images-eu.amazon.com/images/P/B000BX6FU0.01.THUMBZZZ.jpg)
![Hamlet [1990]](http://images-eu.amazon.com/images/P/B000171RTK.01.THUMBZZZ.jpg)
![Hamlet [1948]](http://images-eu.amazon.com/images/P/B00004CZVJ.01.THUMBZZZ.jpg)
![Hamlet [1997]](http://images-eu.amazon.com/images/P/B00004CULH.01.THUMBZZZ.jpg)
![Hamlet [1969]](http://images-eu.amazon.com/images/P/B0006OR0L2.01.THUMBZZZ.jpg)
![Hamlet [2000] (REGION 1) (NTSC)](http://www.bill88.com/buy.gif)
![Hamlet [2000] (REGION 1) (NTSC)](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/21N26GZC4SL.jpg)
![Hamlet [2000] (REGION 1) (NTSC)](http://www.germanelectronics88.com/noimage.gif)