Hamlet (2000)
Average Rating: 5.8/10
Reviews Counted: 85
Fresh: 47 | Rotten: 38
Stiff performances fail to produce any tension onscreen.
Average Rating: 6.4/10
Critic Reviews: 22
Fresh: 15 | Rotten: 7
Stiff performances fail to produce any tension onscreen.
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Average Rating: 3/5
User Ratings: 10,028
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Movie Info
Campbell Scott is both star and co-director of this elaborate (albeit economically produced) four-hour TV version of Shakespeare's immortal tragedy Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. The film is based on Scott's earlier theatrical production of the same play, with several of the same actors repeating their same roles. Updated to 1900 New York, the text remains substantially the same as it has always been: Hamlet (Scott), the "melancholy" Danish prince, discovers to his horror that his late father, the
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Cast
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Ethan Hawke
Hamlet -
Kyle MacLachlan
Claudius -
Sam Shepard
The Ghost -
Diane Venora
Gertrude -
Bill Murray
Polonius -
Liev Schreiber
Laertes -
Julia Stiles
Ophelia -
Karl Geary
Horatio -
Paula Malcomson
Marcella -
Steve Zahn
Rosencrantz -
Dechen Thurman
Guildenstern -
Rome Neal
Barnardo -
Jeffrey Wright
Gravedigger -
Paul Bartel
Osric -
Casey Affleck
Fortinbras -
William Houston
Hamlet -
Christopher Timothy
The Gravedigger -
Gareth Thomas
Claudius -
Campbell Scott
Hamlet -
Blair Brown
Gertrude -
Jamey Sheridan
Claudius -
Roscoe Lee Browne
Polonius -
Lisa Gay Hamilton
Ophelia -
Roger Guenveur Smith
Laertes -
Sam Robards
Fortinbras -
John Benjamin Hickey
Horatio -
Michael Imperioli
Rosencrantz -
Marcus Giamatti
Guildenstern -
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Leon Addison Brown
Third Player (Lucianus) -
Matt Malloy
Captain -
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Dan Moran
Gravedigger -
Gary De Michele
Pianist -
Bill Buell
Bernardo -
Joan Campion
Marcellus -
Peter McRobbie
Priest -
Lewis Arlt
Voltemand -
Byron Jennings
Player King, The Ghost -
Denis O'Hare
Osric -
Eric Simonson
2nd Gravedigger
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All Critics (86) | Top Critics (23) | Fresh (47) | Rotten (39) | DVD (10)
It could prove almost as definitive -- and far more easily digestible -- than Branagh's textually complete version.
The lines are read for the most part with more feeling for the angry-stepchild plot than for the iambic pentameter.
Almereyda modernises and streamlines without trivializing, and amplifies poetic melodrama with regular ingenuity and energy.
Icy-cold in its palette and unwaveringly cool in its application of modern settings and gizmos to a text that stands up to endless reinvention, this is a Hamlet that brings imagination matched by thoughtfulness to its appeal to both eye and ear.
The result is more than a mere gimmick and less than an unqualifed success, but yes -- it's always watchable.
By equating the garish feudalism of the play's original setting with the megalopolis of today's New York, [Almereyda is] at least on the right track. The problem is, it's just about his only track.
2000 version of Hamlet is just dreadful.
Almereyda pares the drama down to its bloody core, leaving a potent tale of despair, madness and loss.
The movie is almost playful in its mission to burrow around inside Hamlet and discover what's still relevant about it.
The city becomes a living emblem of the tense coexistence of art and corporatism, an uneasy relationship which Almereyda emphasizes as the core conflict of his picture.
[This is] an imaginative and exciting update, lacking only the decent swordfight the ending demands.
I guess Johnny Depp was busy, so they got the one that can't act.
No, Ethan Hawke can't do Shakespeare.
In a sense, it's B-movie Shakespeare, the same as Orson Welles' inspired version of Macbeth (1948), which was produced on a skimpy budget for a B-picture studio.
Hamlet is supposed to be melancholy, but Hawke plays him as a disturbed loner who is more likely to infect the world's computers with an e-mail virus than avenge his father's murder.
Consider it a primer for Kenneth Branagh's four and a half hour Hamlet opus.
Fear not. This Bard is anything but boring!
This film is a refreshing contrast to the latest batch of Shakespeare films.
Best to stick with either the Olivier or Zefirelli/Mel Gibson versions.
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Foreign Titles
- Hamlet (2000) (CA)
- Hamlet (2000) (FR)


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