Sorry, this movie sucks

Memorable, crazy movie

Instant Favorite.

Excellent but underrated film

Although I prefer the darker tale of Macbeth, this is a decent production of Shakespeare's classic. Having seen the English dubbed version, I would have preferred seeing the original in German with subs; dubbing tends to affect the emotional performance(s). This results in actors saying lines which at times come off as mismatched and leaving the viewer scratching their noggin in befuddlement. Having Hamlet being shot in black in white gives the production a bleak, surreal sort of mood. For a second, I had thought that Rod Serling would come out with cigarette in hand saying:'These guard sentries do not realize it yet, but that shadowy spectre looming off in the darkness..will set off a series of events..all beginning with one Danish prince.'Kudos to Maximilian for his portrayal of Hamlet. I also strangely enjoyed the leery presence of Hans Caninenberg..he makes you realize that Claudius is just up to no good whatsoever. A few extra points for Denmark being in another dimension..a dimension not only of sight and sound but of...ah, you know the rest!

Take:1. a famous play2. a director with now ideas of his own who is using3. a copy of the stage design of a popular theatre production of the play mentioned in 1.4. an actor for the lead - who has no feeling for the part he's playing And you'll get: "Hamlet, Prinz von Dänemark"I listened to the radio play of "Hamlet" with Maximilian Schell as Hamlet and I was so disappointed. I hoped that the filmed version would be better, that Schell would at least have a body language to underline what he's saying - nothing. Then the set... the minimalistic design is not everyone's taste, but usually I like it when there's just enough on the stage to make clear what's the setting and nothing more. Alas, that's on a stage, in a theatre. It won't work in a film based on a play that actually has believable settings. That the idea for the set was copied from the theatre production in which Schell played the Hamlet already... let's say if that was the only thing to complain about... I ask myself how Schell could get the part of Hamlet anywhere in first place and how anybody could allow him to play Hamlet a second time. If you've got the choice to view any of the about sixty films based on "Hamlet", don't watch this one, unless you're a masochist, or really hardcore, or like to poke fun on untalented actors.

This movie is definitely not the best production of Hamlet, it's rather bleak and slow, but halfway watchable.As to the MST3K episode, this is the ONLY one in my collection that I've only watched once (I've even watched Catalina Caper and The Sidehackers multiple times). Boring! I appreciate that they were trying something a little different, but Mike and the 'bots just don't seem to know what to do with this one. After all, no matter how poor the production of Hamlet, the words would still be Shakespeare's, and it just doesn't work with MST-style humor.However, if you're looking to get this episode as part of the DVD collection vol. 4, vol. 4 is still absolutely worth the money for three of the funniest episodes ever: Overdrawn at the Memory Bank, Girl in Gold Boots, and Space Mutiny!

While not to everyone's tastes, I actually prefer the dreary tone of this production. I prefer this over the one Gibson was in, at any rate. The dark and sparse sets give you a real sense of Hamlet's brooding mind.