When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

Yo, there's no way for me to review this film without saying, take your *insert ethnicity + "ass" here* to see this film,like now. You have to see it in order to know what you're really messing with.

The acting in this movie is really good.

It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

"...like the baseless fabric of this vision, the cloud-capp'd towers, the gorgeous palaces, the solemn temples, the great globe itself ... shall dissolve and, like this insubstantial pageant faded, leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff as dreams are made on, and our little life is rounded with a sleep." What actor or actress wouldn't give their eye teeth to deliver those lines? No other writer in the English language can conjure up such transcendently strong, evocative language. The Tempest was the last play that Shakespeare wrote entirely by himself, and it's hard to avoid the feeling that this was the master's farewell flourish. If you haven't seen this movie, it's absolutely worth it. Ignore the negative posts; I have no idea what their problem is. I rate this as among the best Shakespeare adaptations specifically for the screen, along with Zeffirelli's "Romeo and Juliet" and Branagh's "Much Ado About Nothing" and a very few others. When this movie was released there was predictably a minor flap about the central character of the old magician/sage Prospero (here, Prospera) being played by a woman. But it turns out to be no problem at all; with some extremely small adjustments to the text, everything works just fine, including the parent/child relationship (Prospera/Miranda) which is now mother/daughter. And Helen Mirren, one of our greatest living actresses, sells it. Converting Shakespeare to film carries both advantages and risks, but one advantage is an extra dimension of nuance: with effective use of close-ups the actors can act with subtle facial expressions as well as with dialog and body language. And Mirren does this very effectively indeed -- watch her face carefully in every one of her scenes. This movie also doesn't shy away from the full text; it's delivered clearly and for anyone not so familiar with Shakespeare's wording this is as good a place to start as any. Another advantage of film is the ability to use special effects, which this movie uses especially for the airy spirit Ariel (an excellent Ben Whishaw) and for the final "vision" sequence. These work well, they add to the overall feel of the play, and (avoiding the risk) they're not overdone. Compared with other Shakespeare plays the list of characters is relatively small, and although there's no doubt this is Helen Mirren's film, the rest of the cast is uniformly good. Felicity Jones is a really nice and convincing Miranda, Djimon Hounsou gives a strongly portrayed version of the conflicted Caliban, and the shipwrecked nobles (David Strathairn, Alan Cumming, Chris Cooper, Reeve Carney, Tom Conti) are uniformly good. The biggest problem area with The Tempest (as a play) is with the "fools" (the comic relief, here played by Alfred Molina and Russell Brand): relative to other plays they just aren't that funny and they seem to be just a distraction to the main story, but to their credit Molina and Brand pull off just about the best versions of them that I've seen.Kudos to director Julie Taymor for giving us this. She's someone with genuine vision and is no stranger to Shakespeare either -- see her eccentrically powerful version of Titus Andronicus ("Titus" 1999, with Anthony Hopkins) as one other example.

Evil monsters, witches, nature spirits, dashing princes, and damsels in distress: sounds like all the appropriate ingredients for every beloved fantastical tale we read as children. But a children's story, this is not. Julie Taymor's 2010 film adaptation of Shakespeare's The Tempest is chock full of those deep, dark questions we, as adults, struggle within the scope of our lives. In a new spin on an old classic, Taymor makes us question our personal family ties, loyalty, revenge, and forgiveness. This modern film stayed to Shakespeare's iconic tale of aristocratic parent and child exiled from their home by an ambitious relative. They are washed up on a mysterious magical island after enduring a cataclysmic storm. For nearly twelve years the pair must establish civilization, making both friend and foe along the way. Also, the language stayed very true to the original Shakespearean. While some may assume this would inhibit understanding the film, the storyline was very simple to follow because of the brilliant acting, camera work, costumes, and set design. I would be completely remiss if I did not note the most strikingly obvious deviation Taymor made from the original: Prospero becomes Prospera. That's right, instead of being shipwrecked with her father for her entire life; Miranda is accompanied by her mother. The mother-daughter dynamic puts an entirely different spin on all of the interactions these two characters share. A shrewd mother who tests a potential suitor for her daughter in hopes to find a good match for her daughter is much more believable to a modern audience. We come from a world where fathers are often depicted as extremely reluctant to release their hold of protection over their daughters to a potential male companion (very different in Shakespeare's time). Mothers are often the natural buffer to allow this transfer to occur. It was brilliant to see Helen Mirren fulfilling the strong emotional role as both father and mother to Miranda's character, another theme very accessible to viewers today. Another character that has always eluded readers is that of the indefinable Caliban. Every stage and film adaptation of this play chooses to depict our menacingly evil, or perhaps tragically misunderstood, antagonist. Usually Caliban bears some resemblance to a savage beast, as he is the offspring of a malevolent witch. Djimon Hounsou was an exceptional casting choice for Caliban, as he flawlessly portrayed the tortured soul of his character. The costuming choices were also brilliant, as Caliban's conflicted nature was captured by depicting him as multi-racial (covered in patches of every shade of skin tone), two differently colored eyes, and scantily clad in an indigenous looking loin cloth. The camera work and set design were also breath-taking, as the beauty of an exotic Mediterranean island was perfectly captured. Frequent use of wide camera angles to capture the sheer majesty of the island allowed the audience to believe that magic truly could exist in a place like this. And within an instant we saw this tropical dream paradise change into a raging, torrential nightmare as the tempest moved in. Overall, Taymor achieved an excellent balance of making tribute to a timeless Shakespearean classic, while still adapting certain aspects of the tale to appeal to modern audiences. And if at any point you may feel daunted by the deep philosophical questions or challenging Shakespearean language this film possesses, don't fret. At any moment, a hilariously intoxicated Russell Brand, as Trinculo, will be popping out from around the corner to provide some hysterical comic relief!

I am not a fan of male characters in Shakespeare being played by women, although it is only fair when you remember that when first written, all parts were played by men. However, I thought Helen Mirren did a brilliant and believable piece of work. At least the text had been adapted to reinforce the fact that she was female and we weren't expected to believe that she was Prospero and not Prospera. I thoroughly enjoyed this screen adaptation and although scenes that I looked forward to were cut out e.g., the Goddesses at the feast, the CGI was very clever. I thought that it was a mistake to make the casting of Caliban an African man, although he was disguised with scales and what looked like vertiligo. The purists see this play as about man's fear of anything different,(the other) and this plays into the post colonial criticisms by making the man black. Although Ben Wishaw did a sterling job as Ariel, it was a bit disconcerting to see his thin body running around naked. Especially at the beginning when he had to lie about with his leg discretely crossed in case he revealed anything he shouldn't. However, having acted in this play and seen several versions this was one of the best.

The Tempest is not the most riveting drama, the larger realization is after all a certain weariness with it. This is given to us as a magician who halfway through the story abandons his powers of illusion, who after conjuring to him the characters and plotting the story of revenge pauses to reflect on the emptiness of the endeavor. It's still powerful then, because we are all Prosperos alone in our island with the thoughts we conjure up to inhabit.In Shakespeare's time, the inspiration for Prospero must have likely come from the scandalous topic of John Dee, the communion with spirits and visions through crystals certainly point at that as well as more broadly the notion of a benign magic. Magic since well before Dee and up to Crowley has tried its best to mask in so much hoopla what other spiritual traditions make clear from the start: that man is an embodied consciousness with the ability to direct that consciousness to vision. Shakespeare no doubt understood this was exactly his own art, a rich and complicated magic of conjured vision in peoples' minds.So if this is to be powerful, you have to adopt a very intricate stance. Show both the power of illusion as vision and, contradictory, the emptiness of it, the fact it is underpinned by an illusory nature of reality. Greenaway masterfully did this in his Prospero film by having Prospero's creation of the play as vision, the vision lush and wonderful, and yet at every turn shown to exist on a stage.Taymor is too earnest to strike this stance, in fact judging by the cinematic fabrics here she seems unsure of what direction to follow. She is an earthy woman so intuitively builds on landscape, volcanic rock under our feet. Pasolini could soar in this approach judging from his mythic films, her approach is too usual and without awe. The magic is also too ordinary. A few movie effects cobbled together in earnest as something to woo simple souls like Trinculo. Compared to the novel richness of Greenaway this feels like discarded Harry Potter work. And the cinematic navigation is without any adventure, as if Taymor didn't believe there was anything for her to discover outside the play, to conjure up in the landscape itself by wandering to it, so she never strays in visual reflection.Mirren conveys the reflection as best she can, but that is all here, too little.