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Hamlet
Threat advisory: Elevated - Significant risk of entertaining activities
Movie propaganda
Murder and violence, revenge and intrigue, sex and desire, paranoia and madness - the heady brew of passions and emotions that makes up Shakespeare's tragedy Hamlet has intoxicated audiences across the ages. at its core, the story of the Prince of Denmark (Kenneth Branagh), who seeks revenge for his father's murder at the hands of his uncle, delves into fundamental issues about humanity and the nature of being.
The film boasts an impressive cast which includes Derek Jacobi, Julie Christie, Kate Winslet, Richard Briers, Robin Williams, Billy Crystal, Jack Lemmon and Charlton Heston.
Intelligence analyst
Special Agent Matti
Theatrical report
Two hours of Shakespeare hacked down from the four-hour director's cut.
At times you can easily see that this was part of a larger epic but it manages not to mangle the basic story too much. The imagery is rich but not so rich as the language, which occasionally takes off on a tangent of its own, leaving the audience to gloss over the boring bits and wait for the next nudie flash. It doesn't help that the actors seem to be competing to show off who can pronounce Shakespeare the quickest, nor that Ken sends the camera whirling round and round the actors whenever he can't think of anything better to do. It is all very clever but is it art?
As for Ken's performance, it ranges from the classical Shakespearean ack-tor to the contemporary fillum acta, and while it may do nothing for continuity of character, at least it gets a few laughs. He even manages to look ten years younger than he really is, which only makes him a decade or so older than the character. It's amazing what losing a few kilos and throwing a bit of bleach in the old hair can do for mutton dressed up as lamb. The fake abs in the fencing suits don't hurt, either.
The impressive cast was an impressive cast, delivering strong performances of themselves (the famous ones anyway), with Ophelia (Kate Winslet) being an intense and faithful psychotic, which helped to show up Hamlet's ham acting as a madman for what it was. The cast of thousands as a cast of thousands was, well, a cast of thousands.
All in all it was no Baz Lurman's Romeo + Juliet but it was a far, far better thing I saw than any of those old BBC Shakespeare crap things I had to sit through at uni.
Cynics might like to watch out for Brian blessed's non-period contact lenses, the breathing corpses and the continuity errors.
Security censorship classification
PG (Medium level violence, adult themes, sexual references)
Surveillance time
126 minutes (2:06 hours)
Not for public release in Australia before date
Film: 3 February 1999
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