'We go to gain a little patch of ground that hath in it no profit but the name.'īranagh's breakneck Hamlet hurtles along with a mad, almost maniacal momentum, and the whole of the cast seems all too eager to succumb to the same insanity and intensity that drives Shakespeare's fevered prince (played with passion and vitriol by Branagh himself). Kenneth Branagh's sweeping, Oscar-nominated film has long been hailed as one of the greats - several critics have even called it the finest Shakespeare adaptation committed to film - but, truth be told, it doesn't sit as well with me. As accessible as it is complex, as clever and witty as it is tragic and unsettling, as mesmerizing as it is inexhaustible, it has entranced audiences for centuries and given rise to countless adaptations, some brilliant and challenging, some I'd rather not dignify with a response, and some that have carved out a niche in between, vaulting past lesser, uninspired productions only to fall short of greatness. As the Bard's longest work and most frequently adapted play, Hamlet is as iconic and essential as they come a masterpiece in every sense of the word.

Moore's Battlestar Galactica have put more stress on my laptop keys. Only the works of Nathaniel Hawthorne (might I offer my eternal, sarcasm-ridden thanks to Mr. And that doesn't include whatever high school term papers and college exam essays I've lost track of over the years. Over the course of my education and professional career, I've written upwards of 85,000 words about William Shakespeare's Hamlet. Reviewed by Kenneth Brown, August 11, 2010

Hamlet full movie 1996 free