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10/18/08
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Hamlet (2000)
56
%
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:84
Fresh:47
Rotten:37
Average Rating:5.8/10
Consensus: Stiff performances fail to produce any tension onscreen.
Runtime: 1 hr 52 mins
Genre: Dramas
Synopsis: Ethan Hawke stars in this modern update of Shakespeare's classic play. He portrays a young filmmaker in New York City who struggles to gain power of his deceased father's company, even as the new... [More]
Starring: Ethan Hawke, Julia Stiles, Kyle MacLachlan, Diane Venora
Director: Michael Almereyda
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Reviews for Hamlet
Jitteringly paced and awkwardly edited with a brace of vapid performances. Only Sam Shephard gives a performance worthy of the material.
01/01/00
Click to read the article
09/10/09
Top CriticA moody and compelling update of Shakespeare's classic.
03/09/01
Top CriticAlternately clumsy and clever, it’s nonetheless the new order of Shakespeare.
01/01/00
Just not quite daring or spectacular enough.
06/12/01
All the stodgy Elizabethan conventions of asides, soliloquies, eavesdropping, and ghosts seem natural when translated into the artifices of cell phones, video cameras, tape recorders, and bugging devices.
01/01/00
Almereyda pares the drama down to its bloody core, leaving a potent tale of despair, madness and loss.
07/06/08
A flat and uninteresting adaptation of Hamlet.
01/01/00
Hamlet offers a valuable meta-comment on the role of the visual media with regards to the representation of the self.
03/08/01
Miramax shouldn't be encouraged to do more along these lines by watching it anywhere but at home. Double feature with Strange Brew & see if anything looks familiar.
06/15/01
The picture starts out promisingly, but seems to lose scale and focus as it progresses; this could be the only production of Hamlet on record in which the bloody finale seems anti-climactic.
01/01/00
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.
05/26/04
What makes Hamlet a masterful play rather than a Jacobean revenge potboiler is the complexity of its central character ... Hawke is simply a sullen adolescent, never smiling.
01/01/00
Shakespeare gets buried in a barrage of faxes, videos, jumpcuts, and product placements.
01/01/00
A mostly well-acted piece that falters only slightly because of a couple of wrongheaded moves.
03/09/01
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.
04/11/02
Top CriticClick to read the article
01/01/00
Top CriticNever have I seen a more lifeless presentation of a Shakespeare play.
01/01/00
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