The rest of the cast acquits itself nicely. Presence, and he should be applauded for it. He focuses on theĬharacter, rather than expecting the audience to swoon at his mere screen Himself in a manner that's in keeping with the period. Weapon-style 'crazy faces' when the going gets tough, and he carries Performance is more animated and wall-to-wall forceful than purists mightĮxpect it to be, which is just fine. Make a career out of movies, but he doesn't embarrass himself either. He hardly leaves you lamenting the theater's great loss when he opted to Gibson, as you might expect, plays Hamlet, and he's actually pretty good.

The steak cut in half and the potatoes thrown away before you start Though this is a very handsomely mounted production, it's the movieĮquivalent of sitting down for a meal of steak and potatoes, only to have But Zeffirelli and hisĬo-screenwriter, Christopher De Vore, excise subplots involving entireĬountries, in favor of little more than one Dane's screwed up family life. Madness can still be a chore to sit through. Writing or not, a complete cinematic unveiling of this tale of betrayal and Which was filmed six years after Zeffirelli's, suggests that, major piece of

Kenneth Branagh's much more effective four-hour version of Hamlet, It's over before you know it, which, you have to figure, is exactly what Performances and features lots of neat speeches and murderous histrionics. Than half as long as the full play, although it still contains a few solid Mel Gibson, have constructed a sort of Hamlet-Lite that runs less

Zeffirelli and his star, some good-looking guy named Seems custom-tailored to today's audience.not that it made much money when Well, Franco Zeffirelli's Hamlet (now available on Warner Video) Of poetry, but not too much, as they have to get done in time to watch the MoreĪdventurous types, on the other hand, might be able to handle a little bit Pantaloons, and any phrasing that isn't regularly heard on the averageĪmerican street corner is considered too high brow for public consumption.

Most modern movie fans are simply intimidated by people in Public acceptance goes, regardless of whether or not they received critical Filmed Shakespearean plays have always existed in a sort of limbo as far as

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