How sad is this?

Best movie of this year hands down!

Absolutely the worst movie.

Unshakable, witty and deeply felt, the film will be paying emotional dividends for a long, long time.

I enjoyed but wasn't bowled over by this version of "Hamlet" set against glitzy New York City, my adopted hometown.The city looked great; the principals less so. While Diane Venora and Kyle McKlachlan were wonderfully convincing as the middle-aged lovebirds, Ethan Hawke was merely OK as the sweet indecisive prince, and Julia Stiles, so wonderful in Luhrmann's "William Shakespeare's Romeo + Juliet," was a bit drab as his suicidal flame. I enjoyed Bill Murray in a rare serious role as the tragic pedant Polonius. Liev Shreiber, great in movies such as "Defiance," merely phones in his depiction of boring protective brother Laertes.The "play within a play" segment was exceptionally well-done; I thought making Hamlet out to be a kind of avante-garde film student was a very creative way of handling this critical piece of Shakespeare's masterpiece.Given how creatively that part of the play was handled, it seemed unimaginative to have Hamlet's and Laertes's final scene be a traditional fencing duel. With Denmark having been modernized to the Denmark Corp., a sword fight seemed anachronistic and lazy.In all, however, this wasn't a bad way to spend an hour and 55 minutes.

Really. This is a load of crock. The only market I can see for this is perhaps high-school students who really can't get a grip on Shakespeare's text. If you're hoping for a movie that stands on its own merits, or, alternately a Shakespeare text done well in feature film format you're bound to be very disappointed. In fact, you're bound to be disappointed no matter what. Unless of course, you have an all-blinding respect for one of the many famous lead actors. Maybe, just maybe, then you might have enjoyed it. As I'm sure many have. Perhaps a more apt title for this film might be "Hamlet - the guy who really got upset because the action section at Blockbuster was simply too limited".

A truth I think is often overlooked when it comes to regarding movies is that a good movie is more than a good idea. Sometimes I get the feeling that people will indulge themselves with certain movies, and very eagerly try to convince you of their greatness, by enlightening what, in theory, is so good about them. There can be all these things going on inside of a movie, all these themes and many original ideas. Yes, certainly, but is it any good? I get the feeling that some movies will get critical and audience approval, sometimes even hail, just because most movies aren't that original.This Hamlet strikes me as such a movie. The Shakespeare tragedy, in unaltered words though heavily cut, set in a modern New York City with all suitable alterations you'd imagine. As far as I can see, these alterations is the only attraction given. The kingdom of Denmark is now a corporation called Denmark, the young prince is now the kind of quasi- intellectual, very post-MTVish kind of sad puppy (Ethan Hawke) that plays with his video editing equipment all night long. His speeches take place not within castle walls but along the shelfs of a video store and, yeah, I don't know... really? Some of these modern translations work better than others: the best ones tend to be smaller details, like the doorbell with Ophelia's name written on it by her apartment building. The worst are fairly laughable - the finale is specially anti-climactic and that must be the most unspectacular vision of the ghost of Hamlet's father ever (he vanishes by a Pepsi machine in some random corridor).But these alterations are besides the point, or at least I feel they SHOULD be besides the point. But if I stop taking notes about these alterations and focus on the movie in itself - I find that I don't really know what I'm watching. What was the point of making this movie? Most Hamlet adaptations - be it Branagh's 4 hour epic or Zeffirelli's weird adventure/thriller spin - has the guts to take the source material more or less by the roots and try to make something new out of it. This one does very little (dare I say nothing at all?) for the actual play. This Hamlet is obviously one of those Hamlets done for the sake of it being Hamlet. It's like "you see that! That's 'to be or not to be' in the video store! And that is James Dean, basically, as the Player King". But the self-referencing lacks any kind of substance other than being a, sometimes pretty, visual trivia game. It lacks a rhyme and reason of it's own, which becomes very clear when our Hamlet is watching a stage play of Hamlet himself! That is not cool, that is just stupid. Talk about self-referencing gone overboard!The absence of clear ambition and direction is even more tangible when we get to the acting department. Rarely have I seen a more disjointed group of actors. There exists almost no convincing chemistry between any of the characters and the actors themselves are stale and awkward, as if they really don't know how they are supposed to do this. You remember Jack Lemmon in Branagh's Hamlet? That's the entire ensemble here. Ethan Hawke is merely reading lines with a theatrical voice, Diane Venora does a professional but totally automatic sob-sob performance as Gertrude, Liev Schreiber takes on another ambitious role in Leartes but ends up performing very little of it anyway, I really don't know what Jula Stiles was doing and who provided Horatio with whatever he's on? I liked Kyle MacLachlan the most, just because I couldn't detect any visible failure in his performance and I was surprised that Bill Murray actually tried to play Polonius instead of, well, playing Bill Murray. I'm not sure if his performance is good, but at least it's ambitious.All in all, 'tis strange - Why was this movie made? For whom? What was the point? If you are familiar with the play, there is no need to see this movie except for the trivial reason of having seen a modern adaption - and I sense most Hamlet-fans are obsessive enough to check this out just for the sake of it (after all, I did). And if you're not then I can only imagine what a confusing and incoherent ordeal this movie must be to sit through. The best thing you can say about this piece-by-piece shifting of Shakespeare's Mideval Denmark to New York in 2000 is that it's "hum, hum, kinda cool I guess". But then what?

It was very exciting to FINALLY have someone more age appropriate portraying Hamlet. The modernized setting intrigued me. But there are just some things that do not transcend to the modern world - avenging a father's death, a prince getting away with multiple murders and "Get thee to a nunnery...", for starters.This is a strong cast that was hampered by the direction, screenplay and editing. Ophelia was too childish, Polonius too silly, and Hamlet too unimpassioned.If you're a Shakespeare freak, give it a whirl. But this is NOT the one to show in English class!