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Hamlet Customer Reviews (4 - 6 of 46 Reviews)

Gibson's Hamlet is very entertaining
Mel Gibson turns in an excellent performance as Hamlet, showing a fine mix of melancholy, madness, and humor. Also outstanding is Helena Bonham Carter; her handling of Ophelia's tragic breakdown is top-knotch.

There are some liberties taken with this version--as well there has to be when dealing with four hours of subject matter--but overall the film stays true to the words. Most all of the memorable lines are kept, except, alas, "Something is rotten in the state of Denmark." But, at least there's nothing rotten with this fine film. Enjoy.

Highlights of Hamlet
When I first saw this version, not long after its release I was immediately lost and confused. Having a clear ability to understand Shakespeare (as I had read several of his plays, but not yet Hamlet) I was bewildered. A film based on Shakespeare needs to interpret the work VISUALLY as well as with the dialogue.

This is not a film for those who know not the play and it is too short, too cut and too uninspired for those who do. What a pointless mess, really. Typical dreary castle, typical silly costumes, typical, typical, typical. It's everything people expect from films based on Shakespeare, boring, dull, familiar.

See Kenneth Branaughs 4hr masterpiece, and Anthony Hopkins "Titus" or Ian McKellen's "Richard III" to see what Shakespeare can really be on screen.


Without its natural end, it is endless
This Play is one of the most important pieces of drama and poetry in Shakespeare's complete works. A cycle of peace and quiet is disturbed by an incestuous crime, both the murder of a brother and the hasty and sensuous marriage of the murderer with the victim's wife, a marriage which is totally against the normal Christian and feudal rules of the time : you are not supposed to covet the wife of your brother. Then havoc falls onto the kingdom of Denmark. Hamlet is forced to play deranged and crazy to save his life and to cover up his violent defense against dangers around him. Ophelia will get deranged to the point of drowning herself. Then the cycle of disturbances will go on to its utter end which means the destruction of all the protagonists. Shakespeare's vision does not stop there : equilibrium is reintroduced in this disturbed kingdom by the arrival of a distant cousin, Fortinbras, who seizes power by force though he represents the last touch of legitimacy available. But this film takes two interesting options. The first one is the will to be as realistic as possible about the real living conditions of the time in the Elsinore Castle in Denmark. Gloomy, dark, shadowy, life is nothing but a shady dream accompanied by ambitious social climbers who are ready to do anything to have power and privileges. The film insists on the fate of some of these smiling hypocrites, like Rosenkrantz and Guildenstern who are shown in their last living instant just before the axe of the executioner falls on their necks in London. The film also insists on the filth of such a life and concentrates this dirt onto Ophelia. This realistic choice gives to the play a dramatic density that it deserves entirely. At times it verges onto a melodramatic dimension, especially when dealing with the mother who is an unsensitive ambitious woman who does not want to lose the status of Queen and is ready to do anything to keep that crown. In fact she cannot love Hamlet because he represents a danger to her queenhood. Zeffirelli shows her nearly as being repentant. The second option is the cutting off of the last scene, the arrival of Fortinbras to seize power by force and legitimize the return to equilibrium since he is the only surviving relative of this blood line and he had been banned out of Denmark because he was against the strange crowning of the brother of the dead King due to his marrying the dead king's wife, which is incestuous as we have seen. This change in ending cuts off any historical and political meaning in the play, and that is a shame because Shakespeare is a great historian in a way, definitely a historical playwright who has a full vision of fate and time. Why did Zeffirelli do that ? We can hardly know. Maybe he wanted to balance his Romeo and Juliet with a second drama of the same type. Maybe it is his vision of Shakespeare, even if it is a reduction.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University of Paris Dauphine & University of Paris I Pantheon-Sorbonne

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