Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

The most memorable part of this movie was when Hamlet was walking around the video rental store. Wow, this really does come off as an old story. Anyway, this movie is an updating of Hamlet in modern times and it wasn't quite handled that well. It's probably because they try to use the old dialogue in the modern times. It does come off as awkward. I still thought that the pacing was pretty good. I think Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are becoming my favorite Hamlet characters. We get the ghost of Hamlet's father and everything else.It's just that there was nothing unique about this version. I guess the longest movie I've ever seen in my entire life that adapts the same story would be a tough act to follow. It's still faithful to the original story. The actors aren't bad. It's just that they aren't bringing anything particularly interesting to the table. I guess when you see the same story over and over you get a bit tired of it. It's still interesting to see a modern version. **1/2

Hamlet (2000) was adapted to the screen and directed by Michael Almereyda. This Hamlet is set in contemporary New York City, but Almereyda has retained Shakespeare's language. Naturally, this makes for anachronisms and awkward moments. However, the transformation from Denmark as a nation to Denmark as a giant corporation worked for me. (Normally, I like Hamlet to be set in medieval Denmark, Romeo and Juliet in Renaissance Verona, etc. However, this particular leap over the centuries was interesting and effective.)For example, Hamlet's soliloquies work brilliantly on the stage, but they're a daunting challenge to a film director. Almereyda solves the problem by having Hamlet speaking into a video camcorder, so that we can hear him, although he's literally talking to himself.Ethan Hawke as Hamlet was excellent. He's a talented, solid actor in any movie in which he appears. He's even better in Hamlet--sullen and disaffected, with scorn for his mother's corporate lifestyle. Kyle MacLachlan plays Claudius, obviously a no-nonsense executive. With his cold demeanor and Cary Grant good looks, you can understand why Gertrude was drawn to him.To my mind the acting honors belonged to Julia Stiles as Ophelia. Stiles was 19 when the movie was made, and she was able to combine the eye-rolling behavior of an adolescent at one moment with the hurt, betrayed feelings of a young adult at the next moment. (One decision that Almereyda made didn't make sense to me. It looked as if Ophelia lived alone in a rough tenement building, which doesn't fit Shakespeare or NYC in the year 2000.) However, Stiles, with her exotic good looks, carried off her role like a seasoned professional.I greatly enjoyed this movie, and I was amazed to see that it has a truly dismal IMDb rating of 6.0. Why? In my opinion, the film's much, much, better than that. My suggestion--rent or buy the DVD, see Ethan Hawke as Hamlet, and then judge for yourself.

A truth I think is often overlooked when it comes to regarding movies is that a good movie is more than a good idea. Sometimes I get the feeling that people will indulge themselves with certain movies, and very eagerly try to convince you of their greatness, by enlightening what, in theory, is so good about them. There can be all these things going on inside of a movie, all these themes and many original ideas. Yes, certainly, but is it any good? I get the feeling that some movies will get critical and audience approval, sometimes even hail, just because most movies aren't that original.This Hamlet strikes me as such a movie. The Shakespeare tragedy, in unaltered words though heavily cut, set in a modern New York City with all suitable alterations you'd imagine. As far as I can see, these alterations is the only attraction given. The kingdom of Denmark is now a corporation called Denmark, the young prince is now the kind of quasi- intellectual, very post-MTVish kind of sad puppy (Ethan Hawke) that plays with his video editing equipment all night long. His speeches take place not within castle walls but along the shelfs of a video store and, yeah, I don't know... really? Some of these modern translations work better than others: the best ones tend to be smaller details, like the doorbell with Ophelia's name written on it by her apartment building. The worst are fairly laughable - the finale is specially anti-climactic and that must be the most unspectacular vision of the ghost of Hamlet's father ever (he vanishes by a Pepsi machine in some random corridor).But these alterations are besides the point, or at least I feel they SHOULD be besides the point. But if I stop taking notes about these alterations and focus on the movie in itself - I find that I don't really know what I'm watching. What was the point of making this movie? Most Hamlet adaptations - be it Branagh's 4 hour epic or Zeffirelli's weird adventure/thriller spin - has the guts to take the source material more or less by the roots and try to make something new out of it. This one does very little (dare I say nothing at all?) for the actual play. This Hamlet is obviously one of those Hamlets done for the sake of it being Hamlet. It's like "you see that! That's 'to be or not to be' in the video store! And that is James Dean, basically, as the Player King". But the self-referencing lacks any kind of substance other than being a, sometimes pretty, visual trivia game. It lacks a rhyme and reason of it's own, which becomes very clear when our Hamlet is watching a stage play of Hamlet himself! That is not cool, that is just stupid. Talk about self-referencing gone overboard!The absence of clear ambition and direction is even more tangible when we get to the acting department. Rarely have I seen a more disjointed group of actors. There exists almost no convincing chemistry between any of the characters and the actors themselves are stale and awkward, as if they really don't know how they are supposed to do this. You remember Jack Lemmon in Branagh's Hamlet? That's the entire ensemble here. Ethan Hawke is merely reading lines with a theatrical voice, Diane Venora does a professional but totally automatic sob-sob performance as Gertrude, Liev Schreiber takes on another ambitious role in Leartes but ends up performing very little of it anyway, I really don't know what Jula Stiles was doing and who provided Horatio with whatever he's on? I liked Kyle MacLachlan the most, just because I couldn't detect any visible failure in his performance and I was surprised that Bill Murray actually tried to play Polonius instead of, well, playing Bill Murray. I'm not sure if his performance is good, but at least it's ambitious.All in all, 'tis strange - Why was this movie made? For whom? What was the point? If you are familiar with the play, there is no need to see this movie except for the trivial reason of having seen a modern adaption - and I sense most Hamlet-fans are obsessive enough to check this out just for the sake of it (after all, I did). And if you're not then I can only imagine what a confusing and incoherent ordeal this movie must be to sit through. The best thing you can say about this piece-by-piece shifting of Shakespeare's Mideval Denmark to New York in 2000 is that it's "hum, hum, kinda cool I guess". But then what?

It is hard, even after having SEEN it, to conceive of a movie version of Hamlet worse than the one Mel Gibson perpetrated. However, this travesty pulls it off--employing actors who could not play a period role if their lives depended on it, destroying every line of some of the greatest dramatic poetry in English. Nonexistent diction, nonexistent brains, nonexistent timing, delivery, movement, vocal training, or any other sort of rudimentary acting technique... It is possible to schtick one's way through the kind of movies Ethan Hawke usually appears in , with no talent; it is not possible for him, or his fellow criminals here, to say one line of Shakespeare without mortifying himself and exposing his utter imbecility, inadequacy, and uselessness. The line readings are so dreadful that one wonders if he knows what these words MEAN. Even Kyle MacLachlan and Diane Venora, who are not completely devoid of talent, embarrass themselves; Julia Stiles is of the same toneless, unskilled school of 'acting' as our hero. Everything about this movie is ludicrous to the point of being parodic; what made this director and these 'actors' think they could **** with Shakespeare?