Hamlet (2000)

This is "Hamlet 2000"..... Yes that's what its called. This is basically a modernization of the classic William Shakespeare play with the same title. Sounds like a.....good....idea? Well though it can definitely get pulled off BUT much like the modern day Romeo and Juliet the dialogue is identical to the play from 400 years ago. So there is old English and it doesn't fit at all with the modern day setting. It's incredibly distracting and unfitting. "Modernizing" all the dialogue not even a little bit just doesn't work and you better don't give me the business as a excuse to keep this movie timeless because it's already 15 years old and incredibly out of date. There are fax machines, VHS tapes, and hilarious early 2000s outfits scattered out throughout the movie, it already doesn't hold up.Unlike the Romeo and Juliet (96) which had a ton of stylized cinematography and pacing Hamlet 2000 is mundane, grey and not fun to look at. The setting is in some generic apartment building witch isn't visually stimulating. Though there is occasional creative shots here and there, they are far and few between. But to be honest Hamlet 2000 was pretty low budget and it shows its measly 2 million dollar budget in the lack of visuals and couldn't get close to the epic scale, beautiful shots, from the Oscar nominated Hamlet 1996Little skill was used in the directing as most scenes were people sitting around barely moving. Acting for the most part is wooden and unconvincing. Half the lines are barely audible and most people speak in mumble. I felt like the actors had no clue what they were saying. I barely knew what they were saying. The casting wasn't that good either, Ethan Hawke as Hamlet; Bill Murray as Polonius? What? That doesn't sound right and they just phoned in every scene. Julia Stiles's character Ofelia has a scene where she screams in fear comes off as unintentionally hilarious because it looked like she didn't care at all. One take seems like most they ever did and it makes the movies genre to be a "Thriller" to be underwhelming.The respect for the source material could be taken as offensive. The famous "To Be or Not To Be" speech is filmed in a blockbuster while Ethan Hawke has the goofiest outfit imaginable. Nice product placement there buddy! Then all of a sudden you see Hamlet 2000 watching the actual Hamlet on TV? Wh-what?! How does that even work? Just imagine if its Back to the Future 2 and in it the main characters are seen watching Back to the Future 1 on television. It shouldn't even be in the same universe. The play Hamlet puts on is changed to a pretentious "The Ring" like VHS tape though I kind of like that scene. Sound mixing is muffled a bit though it could've been the VHS copy I was watching. But there was barely any music in the movie when there was it was incredibly generic. There's a scene that takes place in a party and the characters are still mumbling to each other while blaring music is playing. How do they hear each other? This could be the fault of some mediocre editing which has some flashbacks or visions that don't really add to the film at all.This is one of the shorter Hamlet movies to get released just running less than 2 hours which is definitely useful if you wanted a quick summary of the story. And its not a horrible film its definitely watchable and its pretty innocent experiment. When it was released it was well received surprisingly reaching a 70/100 on Metacritic it hasn't aged well however. Hamlet 2000 is still fun to poke at with a group of people. But still there are tons of other adaptions of Hamlet that should be checked out like the 1948 and 1996 ones. Hamlet 2000 gets a 4/10

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.

I enjoyed but wasn't bowled over by this version of "Hamlet" set against glitzy New York City, my adopted hometown.The city looked great; the principals less so. While Diane Venora and Kyle McKlachlan were wonderfully convincing as the middle-aged lovebirds, Ethan Hawke was merely OK as the sweet indecisive prince, and Julia Stiles, so wonderful in Luhrmann's "William Shakespeare's Romeo + Juliet," was a bit drab as his suicidal flame. I enjoyed Bill Murray in a rare serious role as the tragic pedant Polonius. Liev Shreiber, great in movies such as "Defiance," merely phones in his depiction of boring protective brother Laertes.The "play within a play" segment was exceptionally well-done; I thought making Hamlet out to be a kind of avante-garde film student was a very creative way of handling this critical piece of Shakespeare's masterpiece.Given how creatively that part of the play was handled, it seemed unimaginative to have Hamlet's and Laertes's final scene be a traditional fencing duel. With Denmark having been modernized to the Denmark Corp., a sword fight seemed anachronistic and lazy.In all, however, this wasn't a bad way to spend an hour and 55 minutes.

its been a while since I've seen a movie that would qualify to be one of the worst that i have i ever seen. that was until i watched this movie in my English class. without having previously read the play i would not have known what was going on. Hamlet speaks his words so quickly and quietly without emotion that someone unfamiliar with the play would have a very difficult time understanding the plot. key scenes are taken out from the play, and the modern setting does not work in many circumstances. sadly, the best actor in the movie that played Laertes, was not in the movie enough to quite save it. this is not the most coherent or descriptive review, but i suppose that sticks with the theme of this movie. simply put, please save your time and do not watch this movie.