Phonearl Good start, but then it gets ruined

Beanbioca As Good As It Gets

Donald Seymour This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

Guillelmina The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

HotToastyRag Kids today might only associate Christopher Plummer with The Sound of Music or Up, but he's actually quite an accomplished actor! In my book, anyone who can take on Shakespeare must know their stuff; Chris has played in Othello, Macbeth, King Lear, The Tempest, Henry V, Twelfth Night, The Winter's Tale, Henry IV Part 1, Much Ado About Nothing, King John, Romeo and Juliet, Antony and Cleopatra, Richard III, Julius Caesar, and Hamlet. Knowing all that, it seems rather silly he won his Oscar for Beginners, doesn't it? In any case, he starred in Hamlet at Elsinore as the confused, perpetually upset Danish prince. Robert Shaw costarred as Hamlet's uncle, June Tobin as the queen, Jo Maxwell Muller as Ophelia, and Michael Caine as Horatio. If you particularly like this Shakespearian tragedy, or are a Christopher Plummer fan, this is a good one to watch. I think everyone has their favorite version, and my heart lies with Richard Burton, but if you liked Laurence Olivier's interpretation you'll probably like Chris's as well. He's very clearly lost in his head, and his emotions are raw, accessible with only the slightest provocation. He's off in a dream world in one moment, then the next, he sees his friends and is so genuinely delighted to see them, he's forgotten anything at all was wrong a moment ago. When he's rude and insulting, the audience can see it's because he's so wounded inside, he can't take any more and lashing out at others is his release. However, there's one exception: during the famous "Get thee to a nunnery" monologue, he's particularly cruel to Ophelia, the most deliberately mean delivery of any I've seen. When you watch Jo collapse in tears after Chris exits, you just might shed a tear alongside her.Since I'm not a Shakespeare aficionado, I require an abundance of energy from actors to help me understand what it is they're saying, hence my partiality to Richard Burton. But, if you are a little more well-versed than I am, you should definitely give Christopher Plummer's version a try. It's a different interpretation, but still very good.

Bob Taylor I prepared for this review by re-watching Olivier's and Branagh's Hamlet films, and was fascinated to find I prefer this TV production from 1964, filmed under what must have been somewhat difficult conditions (the electrical work had to be done by the BBC, as one reviewer notes). I found Christopher Plummer's performance to be more convincing, more felt than those of Olivier and Branagh. Olivier seems to be fascinated with his own athleticism--that trim body that can do anything he demands of it--just see how he leaps off the platform in Act V to stab Claudius. Plummer on the other hand hasn't got the athleticism but he is better able to unite intelligence with feeling. I was more moved by his 'Now might I do it pat' after Claudius starts praying than by the other versions because of Plummer's occasional clumsiness.The other actors are fine: Alec Clunes really plays Polonius as a prating old fool (just as Hamlet describes him) and Robert Shaw is tremendous as Claudius, virile and crafty and sexy. You see why Gertrude has to fall for him. Michael Caine is ardent in a part that calls for just that quality and little else. He handles the accent fairly well.Only two actors don't do well: June Tobin is stiff and shallow as Gertrude; her range doesn't allow her to really play the bedroom scene effectively. Donald Sutherland seems to play Fortinbras as a foreigner whose English is shaky.

proteus6847 Christopher Plummer's Hamlet is so fine that it redeems a bad film and goes a long way towards redeeming Plummer's career. Here is a man whose gifts might have placed him among the great classical actors, but it was not to be. The fault, dear Brutus, lay in his wayward commitment, a matinée-idol fecklessness that frequently opted for the easy or thoughtless way out. His Iago (1982) was a palimpsest of clashing interpretations; his ashen Macbeth (1988) died before the play began; and his Lear's (2004) admonition that nothing can come from nothing was self-referential. But his Cyrano (1973) was marvelous: romantic and contemporary, eloquent and neurotic, febrile and edgy yet flamboyant, it synthesized centuries of acting styles in a manner reminiscent of Olivier. I am happy to add Hamlet to the list of his achievements.Plummer gives us the complete Prince where others have given us parcels. He has looks, presence, breeding, charm, athleticism, wit and consummate grace. He also has a touch of the feminine (which works well for Hamlet), yet is incontestably virile. This is important: one mustn't feel that Hamlet's fitful misogyny springs from congenital attraction to his own sex. There is no doubt that Plummer could have happily married Ophelia in a better world than Denmark. Nor is there any doubt of his capacity for martial exploits if his mind could deem them authentic. "Hamlet does not think too much but too well," and Plummer has the capacity (lacking in Gibson, Branagh and Hawke) to convey a subtle and probing mind. Michael Pennington (1980) was more intellectual, Derek Jacobi quirkier in his line-readings, but neither combined thought and surprise with sexual incandescence as Plummer does. He is a bright particular Star who has been wounded into inwardness, which is merely to say that he is Hamlet.The movie serves as foil to Plummer: its badness makes his talent stick fiery off indeed. Filmed at Kronberg Castle in Elsinore, it struggles to work new interiors and grounds into every frame. At times, this pays dividends: The Players' first scene takes place in an open-air courtyard, conveying an exhilarating sense of freedom. Alas, most of the locations are derivative, distracting or nugatory. Repeated shots of waves crashing upon rocks look backwards to Olivier's Hamlet (1948) and sideways at Kozintsev's (1964). One stony corridor is much like another. The Nunnery Scene is filmed in the castle's chapel (acceptable) with Hamlet standing above and beyond Ophelia in the pulpit (not). A minister exhorting a sinful parishioner may seem like an apt metaphor, but the actors do not play the scene that way, and the distance between them prevents dramatic synapses from connecting. It's an ominous portent of postmodern decadence.There are unkind cuts, bizarre compositions and moments of painful misdirection--one can count the infelicities like sheep vaulting a stile. The Mousetrap is reduced to its Dumb Show, making nonsense of Gertrude's "The lady doth protest too much." Ophelia loses her second Mad Scene and all her unsettling flowers. Polonius, Gertrude and Claudius speak in a single-file diagonal bisecting the screen, which is perfect for a conga-line but awkward for a conversation. Plummer is so tender, quiet and lucid with Ophelia that her "O what a noble mind is here o'erthrown!" seems crazier than anything Hamlet has said.The tally increases with a crupperful of bad performances. Alec Clunes' Polonius is so fulsome and cute that one can hardly wait for Hamlet to kill him. Jo Muller plays Ophelia as though she were 13, while Laertes (Dyson Lovell) is a cipher to a great account. Subtextual Gertrude must be brought to the surface; June Tobin leaves her placidly submerged ("drown'd, drown'd"). As Fortinbras, Donald Sutherland looks and sounds like an extraterrestrial. The young Michael Caine is a beautiful creature, but beauty is wasted on Horatio, and Caine is so busy avoiding cockney vowels that he neglects to create a character. The biggest disappointment is Robert Shaw, whose distracted, head-rubbing Claudius seems to be suffering from recurrent migraines. Philip Locke, of blessed memory, brings more camp viciousness to Osric than I have ever seen, but it's too little, too late.Plummer must salvage the proceedings, and so he does, seizing his plum role and plumbing it to its depths. With him in the lead, at least one thing is healthy in the state of Denmark. Sometimes there is no reason at all to see a Shakespeare production; sometimes there is only one. Hamlet at Elsinore is out of joint, but Christopher Plummer was born to set it right.

David Laird Scott Just finished watching this film/taping of Hamlet (DVD available from Netflix) and found it to be quite interesting on many levels. Of course, Christopher Plummer is a great Hamlet, but I was not as hot on Michael Caine. Really enjoyed Robert Shaw's Claudius and Jo Maxwell Muller (apparently deceased in 2010) as Ophelia. This version focuses the plot by cutting and editing (such as Laertes' overt challenge to Claudius on his return from Paris), but enough of the play is left for an enjoyable visit. All around the performers handled the verse with great clarity and that is very welcome. I have appeared in four productions of Hamlet, and teach it as part of my curriculum at a community college in Los Angeles and so am very familiar with it.