William Shakespeare's Hamlet
directed by Kenneth Branagh

I have been waiting to watch this movie for some time and when I did, I was not disappointed. Kenneth Branagh has done a magnificent job of bringing yet another adaptation of William Shakespeare's Hamlet to the big screen.

What probably makes this one different from other screen adaptations of Hamlet is the 'simplicity' of the movie. The movie is easily understood even if the only thing you know about Hamlet is the (in)famous line, "To be or not to be". From the start, you know that Hamlet is a person tortured by the murder of his father and the seeming haste of his mother in remarrying. By the end, you see a royal family torn apart by jealousy, hate and revenge.

One criticism I have it that the version I saw the the cut, two-hour version, not Branagh's original four-hour version. There were curious jumps in the movie that I recognise as parts left out (I had skimmed through the text before watching the movie).

But even at two hours long, the film was great. At its original four-hour version, it would have been magnificent.

[Home Page][Index of Reviews][Gattaca][Harry Potter and the Sorceror's Stone]

William Shakespeare's Hamlet directed by Kenneth Branagh

William Shakespeare's Hamlet
directed by Kenneth Branagh