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 Hey Les from Michigan, (See second review at top of page) For one thing Claire Danes was not in this movie. She was in Romeo and Juliet. I think you're confusing movies. Second, if you only watched 45 minutes of the movie and didn't see the whole thing, how in the world can you write a review on the entire film? How can you judge something if you didn't see all of it? Did you even understand it all? Third, I did not think Bill Murray looked like he was singing in a Saturday Night Live lounge, he was serious sounding throughout the movie. He didn't even allude to his comeodious past. I think you need to take a closer look.
There were parts of this Hamlet that I enjoyed, though. The acting by Venora and Shepard was wonderful. MacLachlan played a nice Claudius. I had to wonder, though, why on earth Ethan Hawke got the title role instead of Robert Sean Leonard, whom which this role seemed more suited for. RSL is by far the more talented of the two actors and more comfortably natural in a Shakespearean atmosphere. Hawke seemed tragically in place, however, with the trendy Julia Stiles who should have never ever been given the role of Ophelia. Poor Bill Murray was the most out of place actor in the bunch, god love him. I'm still trying to figure out the relevance of showing Polonius' oozing brains. It was an interesting effort, and I wasn't disgusted or felt like I had wasted my time watching it, and I didn't mind the modern setting or the spiffy shots of NYC hot spots, but, much like Almereyda's "Nadja", I think his reliance upon grainy video collage as innovative filmmaking falls a little flat. There was also a significant amount of lines removed. I wonder if there was a "director's cut" of this film, and if so, would it have revealed a more true-to-the-original feel to it. There is something innately wrong with a version of Hamlet clocking it at under 2 hours. I agree with one of the reviewers who said the title is misleading, because one could go into this movie assuming that it is a faithful version of the original when, in fact, it is an abridged and at times unflatteringly manipulated experiment in video collage and product placement. Did my eyes see it correctly when Hamlet's ghost disappeared into a Pepsi machine?! That moment, alone, was enough to poison this movie. I also agree with another reviewer who said that, if it weren't for his/her familiarity with the play, this version would be very confusing. It was abridged enough that it skipped through sections so quickly, I felt like I had to rewind to understand the significance of the prior scene. And the dialogue was often mumbled by the brooding Hawke, making me feel that much more disinterested in and detached from his character and actions. If this was the director's intention, though, he indeed succeeded. Nonetheless, I think this movie is worth a look to Shakespeare buffs just to see a modern interpretation of the classic. I think the casual onlooker who is unfamiliar with the text will be utterly lost and bored within the first half of the film, but it is an interesting experiment in filmmaking that, however, should probably have been rethought about two dozen more times before making it anywhere near a theatre. <...
... Now.. whos to blame? The actors are good and many here... so what's wrong? I think the director or the one that made the script is to blame here.... or.... maybe even the actors... ... Hamlet's father appears in a cigar machine? Come on!!! And look... just look at the air of surprise of Hamlet when he sees the ghost for the first time. Was Ethan on medication? In fact... were everyone here on medication? ... Plain ridiculous and quite entertaining to watch such a movie with such an amount of lack of feeling and expression.
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This updated version of Hamlet was interesting, I must admit, but I wondered during most of the film why, for a hip and modern "Y2K" Hamlet, was this film not directed by Luhrmann when it was so obviously inspired by his interpretation of Romeo + Juliet. Granted, Luhrmann is about as subtle as a Pollock painting, and Hamlet is a far more paced and strategic work that needs to be spared being drenched in Luhrmann's invasive technicolor with a disco beat. However, I don't know if Almereyda was the filmmaker for this particular job. He seemed to feed off of memorable moments in R + J and regurgitate them into his own unoriginal backwash (most blatantly, the final scene that completely ripped off the opening and closing scenes of R + J's modern day news anchor narration). If he would have concentrated on the rich and grim beauty of the original play and not the appeasement of an MTV savvy demographic, I feel that it would have been a much more complete and respectable work. 
This is the absolute worst Shakespeare adaptation I have ever viewed; it was so horrid, I could only watch 45 minutes of it before I took it back to BlockBuster.The acting (?) was pitiful; Ethan Hawke meandered about the screen in what looked like a pointless daze. Claire Daines spent 90% of her camera time in an open-mouthed, slackjawed stupor, apparently attempting to garner an Oscar for Best Fly-Catching Performance. Bill Murray acted like he was still singing in a lounge on Saturday Night Live.If you can even get past the acting (?), there's the problem of the story - as in - where did it go? Quite a bit of the original storyline seems to be missing, making the title of "Hamlet" to be one of major deceit.Save your $3.50 and rent the Mel Gibson or Kenneth Branaugh version and let this one collect dust mites on the shelf.
Director Michael Almereyda's version of "Hamlet" comes in as my top favorite and this is said after seeing Branagh, Olivier and even Gibson do it in films. Every once and awhile I have the wonderful experience of seeing a film on the right side, art side, of my brain. I have no control over when this occurs but when it does, it pulls me right into the movie. I oftentimes am fuzzy about film details after seeing it this way but the intensity of the experience more than makes up for it. I saw this in our local art house theater and my right brain, the art side, was sucked right into the film. I emerged at the end as if in a stupor or drugged; I was that bowled over. Certainly setting the film in high tech New York City at the heartbeat of capitalistic consumerism worked well for me. Perhaps it set the mood for this work though and no one has ever brought out the mood of "Hamlet" as well as it was brought out here. For once, I truly appreciated how depressed, alienated, and isolated Hamlet was from everything and everyone. This has always escaped me in prior filmed versions. The rage is palpable as well throughout. That virtually all of the characters are desolate is well evoked too. Ethan Hawke (Hamlet), Sam Shepard (Father's Ghost), and Bill Murray (Polonius)are all brilliant. I normally like the work of all three and this was no exception. In fact, it is among the best work the three men have done. I realize that many viewers are comparing and contrasting this with Baz Luhrmann's modern remake of "Romeo and Juliet" with Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes. Although I really enjoyed that movie, I cannot say it was high art so cannot compare the two myself. I really cannot think of any flaws and am excited about seeing it on DVD again.
