Movies
Well, it is Hamlet alright. There are many adaptations of Shakespeare's famous play, Olivier's one is often seen as one of the best. Not the most fateful (as the film is considerably shorter than the play), but I'm not one to judge about that, as I'm hardly a fan of this type of theatricality. Hamlet returns home after his father has died. When he arrives, he finds his mother has already remarried, and his uncle is now the king. Hamlet is requested to marry Ophelia, but then his father appears to him as a ghost and informs Hamlet that his uncle and his mother conspired against him, putting Hamlet in a difficult position. This was barely a film, just a stage play on location. The performances were highly theatrical, the cinematography was dire and purely functional, the soundtrack almost entirely absent. And this goes on for a good 150 minutes, telling a story that's been done countless times before. Not my idea of great cinema.Read all
This felt like watching a stuffy old stage play for two hours straight. Maybe because parts of the film are in fact stuffy old stage plays and because the film is based on a Shakespeare play. The result is pretty dull and uncinematic, not the kind of film I was hoping for in a genre that isn't my favorite to begin with. The story is a retelling of how a young King Henry V vows to invade France and take it for his own. He rallies his troops, delivers a few famous speeches, and pushes through until he finally reaches his goal. If you want a real history lesson though, I suggest you pick a different film. The costumes and settings are bland, the colors atrocious, the performances overly theatrical and the plot a true bore. The long runtime doesn't help the film either. Unless you're a big Shakespeare fan and you're aiming to see all the films based on his work, I wouldn't recommend this one.Read all