Eric Stevenson The most memorable part of this movie was when Hamlet was walking around the video rental store. Wow, this really does come off as an old story. Anyway, this movie is an updating of Hamlet in modern times and it wasn't quite handled that well. It's probably because they try to use the old dialogue in the modern times. It does come off as awkward. I still thought that the pacing was pretty good. I think Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are becoming my favorite Hamlet characters. We get the ghost of Hamlet's father and everything else.It's just that there was nothing unique about this version. I guess the longest movie I've ever seen in my entire life that adapts the same story would be a tough act to follow. It's still faithful to the original story. The actors aren't bad. It's just that they aren't bringing anything particularly interesting to the table. I guess when you see the same story over and over you get a bit tired of it. It's still interesting to see a modern version. **1/2

Red-125 Hamlet (2000) was adapted to the screen and directed by Michael Almereyda. This Hamlet is set in contemporary New York City, but Almereyda has retained Shakespeare's language. Naturally, this makes for anachronisms and awkward moments. However, the transformation from Denmark as a nation to Denmark as a giant corporation worked for me. (Normally, I like Hamlet to be set in medieval Denmark, Romeo and Juliet in Renaissance Verona, etc. However, this particular leap over the centuries was interesting and effective.)For example, Hamlet's soliloquies work brilliantly on the stage, but they're a daunting challenge to a film director. Almereyda solves the problem by having Hamlet speaking into a video camcorder, so that we can hear him, although he's literally talking to himself.Ethan Hawke as Hamlet was excellent. He's a talented, solid actor in any movie in which he appears. He's even better in Hamlet--sullen and disaffected, with scorn for his mother's corporate lifestyle. Kyle MacLachlan plays Claudius, obviously a no-nonsense executive. With his cold demeanor and Cary Grant good looks, you can understand why Gertrude was drawn to him.To my mind the acting honors belonged to Julia Stiles as Ophelia. Stiles was 19 when the movie was made, and she was able to combine the eye-rolling behavior of an adolescent at one moment with the hurt, betrayed feelings of a young adult at the next moment. (One decision that Almereyda made didn't make sense to me. It looked as if Ophelia lived alone in a rough tenement building, which doesn't fit Shakespeare or NYC in the year 2000.) However, Stiles, with her exotic good looks, carried off her role like a seasoned professional.I greatly enjoyed this movie, and I was amazed to see that it has a truly dismal IMDb rating of 6.0. Why? In my opinion, the film's much, much, better than that. My suggestion--rent or buy the DVD, see Ethan Hawke as Hamlet, and then judge for yourself.

Bob_the_Hobo Following the death of his businessman father, Hamlet (Ethan Hawke) is deeply offended by his mother's (Diane Venora) swift marriage to her brother-in-law Claudius (Kyle MacLachlan), who in turn takes over the business. Hamlet faces the challenges of his family while struggling with his own personal demons. The only other big budget modern day adaptation of Shakespeare's work that I have seen " Baz Lurmann's "Romeo+Juliet", which was a visceral, complex film with the same script as the play and the same violence we see today. There are few comparisons to make between these two similar films, however. "Hamlet" here is a much more middling, even unimpressive film with barely half the energy of it's predecessor. Ethan Hawke muddles along in a role that starts uninspired and manages to pick up later in the film, but by then it's too late. Perhaps he thought the film would be a good idea until he started filming it. He's a far better actor than this film would suggest, to which I would suggest Hawke fans turn a blind eye. Shakespearian language is a constant blend of rhyme and reason, and sometimes the lines he wrote hundreds of years ago don't translate well to our modern setting. It manages to work, but not without an all too often pausing and looking up the script, especially with the lack of energy from so many cast members. Julia Stiles can't seem to leave her scenes fast enough. She runs through her lines as if they were held up behind the camera, and is vastly inferior to someone like Liev Schreiber, who probably turns in the best performance here. Sam Shepard, as the ghost of Hamlet's father, is as powerful as he always is, but not enough to save the rest of the cast. The scenes of New York City and the power that is related with it are barely made into what it should be: a character in and of itself. That theme, if it had been so, would likely have kept me watching with more than a passive interest. All in all, Shakespeare would be better to watch the Lurmann film instead of this take on his work.

tempus1 It is hard, even after having SEEN it, to conceive of a movie version of Hamlet worse than the one Mel Gibson perpetrated. However, this travesty pulls it off--employing actors who could not play a period role if their lives depended on it, destroying every line of some of the greatest dramatic poetry in English. Nonexistent diction, nonexistent brains, nonexistent timing, delivery, movement, vocal training, or any other sort of rudimentary acting technique... It is possible to schtick one's way through the kind of movies Ethan Hawke usually appears in , with no talent; it is not possible for him, or his fellow criminals here, to say one line of Shakespeare without mortifying himself and exposing his utter imbecility, inadequacy, and uselessness. The line readings are so dreadful that one wonders if he knows what these words MEAN. Even Kyle MacLachlan and Diane Venora, who are not completely devoid of talent, embarrass themselves; Julia Stiles is of the same toneless, unskilled school of 'acting' as our hero. Everything about this movie is ludicrous to the point of being parodic; what made this director and these 'actors' think they could **** with Shakespeare?