I should have known, but curiosity got the better of me. A movie titled like Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Undead is something irresistible to me, much like Rugsuckers from Outer Space or Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead. Whether or not the movie itself is very good always remains to be seen. The film purports itself to be clever just by its title- a take off on Tom Stoppard's play which itself was a take-off on the classic Shakespeare tale. It could perhaps even work as a Troma movie. But what it turns out to be is a, ahem, romantic comedy with vampires and a weak, limp-noodle screenplay by first-time feature-filmmaker Jordan Galland, who writes stuff that should be clever but isn't clever enough by half.
I'm sure some will find the dialog witty and spot-on for the tone Galland is after, which I suppose is something of a cross between straight-up horror and romantic comedy. The story follows an unlikeable theater director, Julian Marsh (played with equally lame and dull screen presence by Jake Hoffman), who responds to an ad looking for a director to helm an upcoming off-off-off Broadway production of Hamlet. Turns out the ad was really looking for a director who could "easily be controlled", this being Theo (John Ventimiglia, who all but steals Robert Downey Jr's persona for the performance), who is in fact a vampire but hides it oh-so-not conspicuously... except, of course, from Julian, who thinks this re-vamp (no pun intended) of Hamlet called Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Undead and is a take-off on the classic, is just dandy.
That is, alas, until several things happen, which include his best friend and actor Vince (funny but not really that funny played by Kris Lemiche) is bitten by Theo the vampire and his two 'girls', and Julian's friend-girl (not quite girlfriend due to his philandering) is cast as Ophelia and, also, turned into a vampire, AND that he gets an instructional video from a society that is looking to get a Holy Grail Theo has that he will use to kill the whole cast and the audience opening night. As all of this goes on, we see scenes and dialog roll along that are, at best, amusing. There are few laughs to be had in some scenes, such as the actors playing Rosencrantz and Guildenstern suggesting some changes to their characters (albeit one of them becoming a running gag that turns less funny as the film goes along), and it's also a pleasant surprise to see Jeremy Sisto appear as a detective, however in only a few precious scenes where he can only do so much.
I can't say how this will do with audiences. Some will come to already knowing that they'll enjoy it, or perhaps their sense of humor goes for the more obvious than mine does. I love over the top horror and bad puns and jokes, but the problems in Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Undead all come back to a few key things: the script is full of lame running gags and one-liners, the characters save on occasion for Ventimiglia's Downey-like vampire or Aoki's sexy girl-turned vamp, aren't interesting, and the lead character (and actor) are not convincing as a protagonist. In fact, the script takes itself a little too high on itself as a meta-work to really be a crazy over-the-top horror comedy, and when it could be a good horror movie, save for the first time we see Theo and his girls sucking the blood out of a guy in an alley, it's not scary or much atmospheric.
Some laughs pick up in the climax, when things start to turn around and Hamlet finally appears (!), but by then it's a little too late to save the rest of the movie. No one has dimension enough to care about them and to take it seriously, and it's not funny enough to be a funny-crazy-bloody comedy. I really came in hoping for the best, and it's been given a nice little grass-roots promotional campaign (outside the theater in NYC there was a guy with a full poster hanging around his neck and with fliers and discount beer at the local bar et all), but the film itself was just... weak. It needed more teeth gnashed at the viewer, or a sense of 'screw it all' and go for broke, instead of such clever insights like, say, title cards with "Long Day's Journey into Fright." Ho-Hum.
8 out of 13 found this helpful.
Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote.
Permalink
