A conditional victory.
Titus (1999)
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:21
Fresh:12
Rotten:9
Average Rating:5.9/10
Consensus: The movie stretches too long to be entertaining despite a strong cast.
Runtime: 2 hrs 42 mins
Genre: Dramas
Synopsis:
Based on Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus (one of the Bard's lesser-known and most gruesome works), director Taymor (Broadway's The Lion King) brings this adaptation to life with dazzling imagery and...
Based on Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus (one of the Bard's lesser-known and most gruesome works), director Taymor (Broadway's The Lion King) brings this adaptation to life with dazzling imagery and haunting immediacy.
Titus (Hopkins) is a victorious Roman general who makes two mistakes: supporting the wily Saturninus (Cumming) as the new Emperor, and wronging Tamora, Queen of the Goths (Lange), by killing her eldest son. Murder follows murder as the tides of fate change, as Tamora is aided by her two reckless sons and her Moor lover, Aaron (Lennix). The body count is raised higher and higher until Titus finally holds a very special dinner banquet.
Taymor's bold visual sense verges on absurdity, but her sense of morality, as well as powerful acting by Hopkins and company, combine to tell a powerful, violent tale.
Starring: Anthony Hopkins, Jessica Lange, Harry J. Lennix, Alan Cumming
Starring: Anthony Hopkins, Jessica Lange, Harry J. Lennix, Alan Cumming, Jonathan Rhys-Myers, Laura Fraser, Angus MacFadyen, Colm Feore, James Frain, Blake Ritson
Director: Julie Taymor
Director: Julie Taymor
Screenwriter: Julie Taymor
Story: William Shakespeare
Producer: Conchita Airoldi, Julie Taymor, Jody Patton
Composer: Elliot Goldenthal
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Reviews for Titus
A consistently absorbing entertainment that never becomes either campy or facetious, given its inescapable exaggerations.
Hopkins unwisely echoes his performance as Hannibal Lecter, but Lange rises to the occasion with a mesmerizingly in-your-face portrait of mother love gone haywire.
Along with everything else, the acting styles here clash, though the dissonance serves the drama's bellicose theme.
Jessica Lange as Tamora, the captured Goth queen, seethes with sexuality and vengeance.
Looks like a jumble sale featuring the work of other directors and artists.
While (Taymor's) film version isn't exactly a solemn spectacle, neither is it much fun.
Despite its nearly three-hour running time, there are few dead spots.
Makes a brilliant case that it is the Shakespeare play for our time, a work of art that speaks directly to the age of Rwanda and Bosnia.
It functions like a giant meat grinder, making hash of everything it depicts.
Julie Taymor has created a film that is as vulgar, obvious and glorious as the Shakespeare play it's based on.
The film is striking and original and, in its clash of the brutal and the delicately poetic, supremely offputting.
This is the film Shakespeare's play deserves, and perhaps even a little more.
A strong case for Titus Andronicus to be taken much more seriously than it has been.
It's all plot twists and shock tactics, without the poetry and resonance of Shakespeare's later work.
Latest News for Titus
February 04, 2005:
Julie Taymor to Direct Musical
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