Surprisingly, the film doesn’t lose much in the updating, and in certain ways, actually gains. And far more than other versions, this one makes it clear that Hamlet had other, better options, and preferred to be… a jerk. Horatio is the exception, I guess, because he’s going to have to write the memoir and consult on the biopic, and yes, Hamlet 2000 would be thinking exactly that. Yes, he does finally off Claudius in the last minute of the film, but too little, too late, and of course only after taking everyone he actually cared about with him. He is, of course, neither: he’s a pompous twit, who, in his immaturity, whines and makes pretentious speeches while letting situations run away from him, finally getting everyone killed for his inability to man up and deal with his fucking issues. Too many productions of Hamlet make the titular character into a tortured hero or at least a victim of tragic circumstances. To sum up: Ethan Hawke is the perfect Hamlet. Nah, why do that when you can set up scenes where you can wail, scream, look even more tortured and engage in swordfights?Īll the while he poses–and when I say “poses,” I mean he strikes GQ style poses and “vogues” while looking really, really tormented. Anyway you know how O’s been having a nervous breakdown and they can’t find your dad? I know you’re loyal to Denmark, but you’ve really got to hear me out on this, man–”
HAMLET FULL MOVIE 2000 CRACK
“Hey, Laertes bro, how was France? Croissants, huh? You crack me up, dude. He never makes an attempt to resolve things before they get to that “tragic” stage. Mostly he just whines and whines, treats both his mother and Ophelia (Julia Stiles, who might as well not even be there) like trash, talks into his cameras, and gets himself in one self-destructive scrape after another. Granted, he’s got a right to be ticked when he finds out that Claudius killed his daddy and married his mother, but with a few exceptions, he does almost nothing about it but bitch and launch vague plots with vaguer endgames. And as far as his relationship with Ophelia goes, he manages to be a jerk of In the Company of Men proportions. A transparent drama queen whose preference for is for filming himself delivering soliloquies instead of, you know, actually facing his issues like an adult. An immature smartass given to spout one-liners when he should know better. His odious personality merrily skips downhill from there the only person he seems to really respect is his father’s ghost (Sam Shepard.) Even Horatio he seems to regard as more sycophant than actual friend or rather, Horatio seems to regard Hamlet with genuine affection, but Hamlet is too self-absorbed to view Horatio as anything other than a warm body to appreciate his theatrics and to recount Hamlet’s tragedies. he passes notes to his ex-girlfriend Ophelia under the nose of her brother Laertes (a marvelous Liev Schrieber), upbraids his mother (Diane Venora) for marrying Claudius, and is rude to his uncle/stepfather (whom he doesn’t yet know is a murderer). Lazily leaning against the wall and regarding the proceedings with maximum disdain. He arrives late, dressed like an Occupy hipster and carrying all of his yeah-I’m-the-next-Tarantino film supplies, making a real effort to be as disruptive as possible. This is New York City, 2000: “Denmark” is now a corporation, headquartered in the Hotel Elsinore in NYC, and young Hamlet, a film student, has reluctantly returned to see his Uncle Claudius (Kyle MacLachlan) “crowned” the Denmark Corp CEO at a press conference.
HAMLET FULL MOVIE 2000 UPDATE
No, this is a Hamlet for for Generation X–the words they may be the same, but the director, Michael Almereyda (whose most recent project was Anarchy, an update of Cymbeline), applies them to a universe in which the world has changed, just never the people. This isn’t the Branagh version, determined to include every word of every folio and achieve perfection in every historical detail possible. The dialogue is the same as always, though I was a bit disappointed that Fortinbras (Casey Affleck) is more or less cut from the production. So I clicked it on.Īnd expecting to be amused, I was…amazed. I mean, Sinister, anyone? No, I thought not. A bit bored, I figured that anything starring Ethan Hawke as Hamlet must be good for a laugh. Hamlet was always my least favourite of the Bard’s plays–and over the course of my life, I’ve been dragged to see many. A couple of years ago, I was flipping through Netflix and came across Hamlet (2000), which stars, of all people, Ethan Hawke as Hamlet.