Ethan Hawke makes an incapable, uninvolved Hamlet.
Almereyda's film lacks not only important lines, continuity, and style, but also the complexity viewers expect from Shakespeare's greatest (or at least longest) play.
Ethan Hawke's slacker Hamlet sports a Peruvian wool cap through most major scenes, including the "To-be-or-not-to-be" soliloquy, which takes place in the action section of a Blockbuster Video store. Many of Hawke's pivotal lines are shouted into answering machines or over telephones. However, it matters little since Hawke doesn't understand his part anyway, and he would probably be just as unintelligible in contemporary prose as he is in Shakespeare's verse.
Murray''s Polonius is just short of pathetic and never laughable or ridiculous as the character should sometimes be.
Stiles' Ophelia is a dramatic undergraduate obsessed with Polaroids, who contemplates drowning herself long before Hamlet's madness, her father's murder, and her brother's absence cause a psychological overload.
Diane Venora as Gertrude is the most interesting character in this film: jealous of Ophelia, ultimately disloyal to Claudius, and protective of her son (even to the point of deliberately drinking the poisoned wine).
The theme of poison in the play is drowned out by the sound of firearms, which seem to both exhilarate and terrify Hawke's Hamlet, keeping him at a safe emotional and physical distance from confrontation. The blood-splattered final scene violently sprays bullets into Hamlet, Laertes, and Claudius.
Almereyda's film lacks not only important lines, continuity, and style, but also the complexity viewers expect from Shakespeare's greatest (or at least longest) play.
Ethan Hawke's slacker Hamlet sports a Peruvian wool cap through most major scenes, including the "To-be-or-not-to-be" soliloquy, which takes place in the action section of a Blockbuster Video store. Many of Hawke's pivotal lines are shouted into answering machines or over telephones. However, it matters little since Hawke doesn't understand his part anyway, and he would probably be just as unintelligible in contemporary prose as he is in Shakespeare's verse.
Murray''s Polonius is just short of pathetic and never laughable or ridiculous as the character should sometimes be.
Stiles' Ophelia is a dramatic undergraduate obsessed with Polaroids, who contemplates drowning herself long before Hamlet's madness, her father's murder, and her brother's absence cause a psychological overload.
Diane Venora as Gertrude is the most interesting character in this film: jealous of Ophelia, ultimately disloyal to Claudius, and protective of her son (even to the point of deliberately drinking the poisoned wine).
The theme of poison in the play is drowned out by the sound of firearms, which seem to both exhilarate and terrify Hawke's Hamlet, keeping him at a safe emotional and physical distance from confrontation. The blood-splattered final scene violently sprays bullets into Hamlet, Laertes, and Claudius.