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Bookmark this pageHamlet (1996)
Director: Kenneth Branagh
Movie review
From Time Out Film Guide
If Branagh's ambitious film needs any kind of compliment, it is that at around four hours it carries itself perfectly well. The star/director has assembled one of the finest casts ever seen on the big screen: so the Player King is played by Heston, who at least gets to speak, unlike Gielgud, Dench, John Mills and Ken Dodd in a succession of parts which underline the text through imagined interludes. Sometimes the casting is regrettable (Jack Lemmon looking ill-at-ease as a superannuated sentry); at others tongue-in-cheek (Attenborough as the English ambassador) or wasteful (Depardieu as a one-scene monosyllabic spy). The role-playing scores most in the world of work and politics, warfare and diplomacy, as imagined by Briers' superb Polonius and Jacobi's Claudius. Branagh's prince is admirable: popular, versatile, frank, kind, ruthless, athletic, straight-backed, with a little-boy-lost voice to go with the martial one. Tim Harvey's production design makes Elsinore a highlight, creating a snow-swept Ruritania of chessboard floors, mirrored corridors, freezing courtyards. Drawbacks: an intrusive score; spurious sex scenes between Kate Winslet's Ophelia and Branagh's pre-antic Hamlet; and a full-scale Norwegian invasion during the final duel. But all in all, as near to Branagh's masterwork as dammit, and far better fun than a jig, or even a tale of bawdry.Author: SGr
Cast & crew
Director: Kenneth Branagh
Producer: David Barron
Cast: Kenneth Branagh, Julie Christie, Billy Crystal, Gérard Depardieu, Charlton Heston, Richard Briers, Derek Jacobi, Jack Lemmon, Robin Williams, Rufus Sewell, Richard Attenborough, Brian Blessed, Michael Bryant, Judi Dench, Reece Dinsdale, Ken Dodd, John Gielgud, Rosemary Harris, Michael Maloney, John Mills, Timothy Spall, Kate Winslet full cast
Genre(s): Period/Swashbucklers
Duration: 242 mins
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