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Hamlet (2000)

tomatometer

55

Average Rating: 5.8/10
Reviews Counted: 85
Fresh: 47 | Rotten: 38

Stiff performances fail to produce any tension onscreen.

67

Average Rating: 6.4/10
Critic Reviews: 21
Fresh: 14 | Rotten: 7

Stiff performances fail to produce any tension onscreen.

audience

47

liked it
Average Rating: 3/5
User Ratings: 9,656

My Rating

Movie Info

The setting is New York City in the year 2000, providing an instant entree to a new generation of filmgoers. Hamlet is born of an alienation and angst not unfamiliar to young audiences. Denmark is not a kingdom but a huge corporation, and the ghost of his father appears to him on the terrace of his sterile metropolitan hotel. The famous 'to be or not to be' speech is delivered under the glare of fluorescent lights in the aisles of a video store. It seems as if once again, this version of the

R, 1 hr. 55 min.

Drama, Romance, Mystery & Suspense

Michael Almereyda

Apr 17, 2001

Miramax Films

Cast

All Critics (86) | Top Critics (22) | Fresh (47) | Rotten (39) | DVD (10)

It could prove almost as definitive -- and far more easily digestible -- than Branagh's textually complete version.

July 6, 2008 Full Review Source: Variety | Comment
Variety
Top Critic IconTop Critic

The lines are read for the most part with more feeling for the angry-stepchild plot than for the iambic pentameter.

April 27, 2007 Full Review Source: New York Observer | Comment
New York Observer
Top Critic IconTop Critic

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.

April 11, 2002 Comment
Detroit News
Top Critic IconTop Critic

The result is more than a mere gimmick and less than an unqualifed success, but yes -- it's always watchable.

March 19, 2002 Full Review Source: Globe and Mail | Comment
Globe and Mail
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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.

October 30, 2001 Full Review Source: New York Magazine | Comment
New York Magazine
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Almereyda has pulled off a formidable coup: He's made Shakespeare come alive for contemporary audiences of all ages, especially young people.

March 12, 2001 Full Review Source: Los Angeles Times | Comment
Los Angeles Times
Top Critic IconTop Critic

2000 version of Hamlet is just dreadful.

December 24, 2010 Full Review Source: Common Sense Media | Comment
Common Sense Media

Almereyda pares the drama down to its bloody core, leaving a potent tale of despair, madness and loss.

July 6, 2008 Full Review Source: Film4 | Comment

The movie is almost playful in its mission to burrow around inside Hamlet and discover what's still relevant about it.

September 17, 2007 Full Review Source: eFilmCritic.com | Comment
eFilmCritic.com

Almereyda modernises and streamlines without trivializing, and amplifies poetic melodrama with regular ingenuity and energy.

June 3, 2006 Full Review Source: Time Out | Comment

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.

June 3, 2006 Full Review Source: Nick's Flick Picks | Comment
Nick's Flick Picks

[This is] an imaginative and exciting update, lacking only the decent swordfight the ending demands.

June 3, 2006 Full Review Source: ViewLondon | Comment
ViewLondon

I guess Johnny Depp was busy, so they got the one that can't act.

June 3, 2006 Full Review Source: Film Threat | Comment
Film Threat

No, Ethan Hawke can't do Shakespeare.

June 3, 2006 Full Review Source: Film Threat | Comment
Film Threat

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.

May 26, 2004 Full Review Source: Combustible Celluloid | Comment
Combustible Celluloid

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.

June 6, 2003 Full Review | Comment
Northwest Herald (Crystal Lake, IL)

Consider it a primer for Kenneth Branagh's four and a half hour Hamlet opus.

April 19, 2003 Full Review Source: Reel Film Reviews | Comment
Reel Film Reviews

Fear not. This Bard is anything but boring!

September 20, 2002 Full Review Source: Hollywood.com | Comment
Hollywood.com

This film is a refreshing contrast to the latest batch of Shakespeare films.

July 12, 2002 Full Review Source: Hollywood.com | Comment
Hollywood.com

Best to stick with either the Olivier or Zefirelli/Mel Gibson versions.

June 5, 2002 Comment
Boxoffice Magazine
More Critic Reviews

Audience Reviews for Hamlet

It seems like they're just actors somehow in a modern setting reciting off of their script (or, in this case, screenplay), but it's all a great, fantastic production otherwise.

June 15, 2011
spielberg00
Alexander Diminiano

Super Reviewer

This is not bad at all. Again, it's no Branagh, but I enjoyed it. I"m not sure if BIll Murray -- who is on my favorite actor list -- is delivering intentionally his Polonius lines the way he does, in that halting manner, as if not fully comprehending the words, or if he really is not doing a very good job. Even with

February 2, 2009
binky013

Super Reviewer

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Foreign Titles

  • Hamlet (2000) (CA)
  • Hamlet (2000) (FR)
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