Hamlet

Despite its length, I highly recommend you watch this!

Masterpiece

Simply the most beautiful version of Hamlet. It may not be the best adaptation - the play is a long and digressive affair - but it is a dream to my completist heart. Kenneth Branagh is a wonderful Hamlet in the vein of Olivier and he shows himself a true artist as the director.

especially the action packed ending. also i really loved not knowing what the they were saying 95% of the time. :) i would def recommend to anyone who suffers from insomnia because it cured mine!! bye felecia or should i say hamlet!! ;))))

You have to really love Kenneth Branagh to finish this film. It is a 4-hour ego-trip. Any high school production of Hamlet is better than this travesty. Hamlet is to be seen live, not on the silver screen. Hollywood needs to stop trying.

A great version of this story.

This movie is sunk by some atrocious editing. It seems to be trying to emulate the MTV/Michael Bay-style quick cuts that were so popular in the 90s, but it just makes the whole affair seem cheesy. The acting and directing are stellar, of course, and as a whole it's the definitive adaptation of the play.

Don't subject yourself to this torture. Branagh once again plops himself down in the starring role (as well as writing and directing) and the persona we see shining through is Branagh, not Hamlet. Now, I'm the first guy to jump on board with a good 4-hour movie. Keyword: good. This is not a good movie; rather, it's 4 hours of horrid overacting (even by the most generous Shakespearean standards), dreadful miscasting (Billy Crystal; Jack Lemmon; Robin Williams; Kenneth Branagh), and a pointless temporal update from medieval times to the 1800s. Other Shakespeare adapters do that to make a statement; Branagh does it to show off the pretty castle he talked his way into. And talk is about all you get with this movie: it's a full-text adaptation. Other directors omit lines and passages to help make the experience flow more smoothly. Here, some actors will spit out there lines like watermelon seeds on automatic to fit them all in, and others (mostly the star) will take forever to milk every possible second of screen time out of it. I was reasonably disappointed with his pre-"Hamlet" work, but now I'm officially off any movie that has his name attached to it (except that Harry Potter flick). The most spectacular waste of everything in the long, sad history of cinematic excess.

This movie was the worst I have ever seen. The characters were not at all how I had imagined from the book. It is a true disgrace of Shakespeare's play!

Heavy, leaden, pretentious production of this classic. Dull, dull, dull and painful to watch. And Hamlet is anything but. Shame on Branagh for letting his ego drive this trainwreck.