Royal Deceit

I promise to wear pants if you promise
not to drown in a river, deal?

It's Hamlet! It's Hamlet with Christian Bale, Gabriel Byrne, Helen Mirren, Kate Beckinsale, Brian Cox and many more. I mean it's an amazing cast doing the greatest tragedy ever written, how can this not be amazing? But there's a narrator. Telling me that Amled (Hamlet) was only pretending to have lost his senses and we're spending a lot of time with the new King Fenge, Amled's Uncle/Father. WTF!?! What just happened with Amled's mother? Whose brilliant idea was it to rewrite Shakespeare?

I'm not going to bother recapping because, well, it's Hamlet. If you haven't read and, or seen at least a version of it in the Bard's tongue, then shame on you. That being said, this isn't a complete travesty. It feels more realistic with the large hall and wooden structures as opposed to the more palatial setting you see when Hamlet is performed. And the skepticism of Amled's break with sanity is a nice touch since it makes some sense. But it's Hamlet and I can't be happy unless everyone dies (which they don't), and it's never quite clear if Hamlet is playing crazy or if he has gone around the bend, and where the hell is my Ophelia singing some loopy song before jumping in a god damned river! Sorry, I get a little worked up over Shakespeare some times. Sorry.

Rating: C-