Best movie of this year hands down!

Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

A lot of perfectly good film show their cards early, establish a unique premise and let the audience explore a topic at a leisurely pace, without much in terms of surprise. this film is not one of those films.

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

Hamlet is a beautiful play. In fact, its widely thought of as Shakespeare's best works. Why someone would want to butcher it like this is completely beyond me. This adaption cuts beautiful and often crucial lines to focus on certain aspects of Hamlet's character, but completely misses the mark.My first and possibly biggest issue with this play is how completely unlikable Mel Gibson's Hamlet is. One of the most fascinating things about Hamlet is that he is a mystery, an enigma of a character. He is also a prime example of a beautifully flawed protagonist. Mel Gibson plays him as a moody, misogynistic, and lustful man-child with no regard for others. His struggle with whether or not to murder his uncle is almost completely diminished in favor of giving us more of Hamlet's "madness" while bringing close to nothing new or revolutionary to his character. Another of this adaption's fatal flaws is its near complete erasure of Horatio, Hamlet's loyal friend and moral compass. More of his lines are cut than anyone else's and his friendship with the moody prince is massively downplayed. In doing this, I believe this movie didn't reach its full potential of just how tragic the story is. We also lose a great deal of Hamlet's sense of turmoil when we underestimate how integral Horatio is to the story. He often acts as Hamlet's conscience and his only confident.Pair all this with a forgettable Claudius, mediocre Gertrude and frankly disturbing and incest-y scene between Hamlet and his mother and you get Hamlet (1990).I will readily admit to absolutely adoring how Helena Bonham Carter played Ophelia. This, in my opinion, is what made this movie worth watching. She seemed far less like "that girl in love with Hamlet" and far more like Ophelia than any adaption I've seen.Over all, though, this adaption of Hamlet's fatal flaw is really the fact that it is *too* Hamlet-centric. I know, it sounds crazy, but hear me out. This interpretation of Hamlet was so focused on telling us about Hamlet, that it left all other characters flat and uninteresting. Instead of asking what motivates a character or why they would say something based on who they were, this adaption seems to focus far more on how this effects Hamlet or what other characters can do to make Hamlet look a certain way. This does every character a great disservice.

Hamlet, a Danish prince, is not happy… his father has recently died and his mother has married his uncle, Claudius who is now king, less than two months later. Not long after this he is visited by the ghost of his father who tells Hamlet that he was murdered by Claudius. Hamlet swears that he will avenge his father. This being a Shakespeare tragedy it won't surprise anybody that by the time it is over just about all of the protagonists will lie dead.I think that this was the first film version of a Shakespeare play that I watched and I really enjoyed it. The Shakespearian language isn't difficult to follow, especially after one has got used to its rhythm. Mel Gibson does an impressive job as Hamlet; one can really believe that he is descending into madness and he can certainly handle the action in the final sword fighting scene. The supporting cast is full of familiar faces; Glenn Close, Alan Bates, Paul Scofield, Ian Holm and a young Nathaniel Parker to name a few... they all do an impressive job but it is Helena Bonham Carter who stands out for her portrayal of the tragic Ophelia; her breakdown after the death of her father and her apparent abandonment by Hamlet is almost painful to watch as it performed so well. While this is famously a tragedy that doesn't mean it there aren't moments of comedy which are still funny four hundred years after they were written. Director Franco Zeffirelli has cut down the script somewhat so that even though it is still over hours old it never drags and I didn't feel as if I was missing something… of course had a seen other versions first I may have felt differently. Overall I'd definitely recommend this anybody; it is a fine introduction to Shakespeare that makes it accessible without the need to modernise it.

I love this movie, Mel Gibson's performance was Oscar worthy by far one of his best next to Braveheart! I haven't seen very many versions of the classic Shakespeare's play, but two. But this one surpassed the other one by far ! This is my daughters take on this movie.I have seen every one of the older versions of this play.And I can honestly say that his performance is just as good,as the men that portrayed this crazy prince in the past.Mel really made me believe that he was a mad man.He me feel sorry for him and mad at the next.If Shakespeare were alive to see him,in this play he would of loved it as much as I did. Glen Close, was great in this movie;she truly made me think that she too had gone mad.

There's a moment at the very end when Mel Gibson's Hamlet, suddenly gripped by poison, looses his footing. It's shocking, natural and a terrible surprise, even to him. Such is the momentum of this melodramatic, almost operatic version of Hamlet that the audience's legs are torn from under them as well. I like this very much, a Hamlet performed by a company with respect but not reverence for the text, converting the script into movie drama not simply committing it to camera.Zeffirelli's biggest coup might be the setting, a damp and distant medieval fortress at odds with Gibson's modern, witty but clearly unbalanced Prince. The British cast assembled around him are very fine - I think Alan Bates would have to be my ideal Claudius. Glenn Close's Gertrude is rather spiky but this highlights her predatory sexuality which (I think) suits this arrangement. Morricone's score is bonus. 8/10