Hamlet
Director: Michael Almereyda
Genre: Thriller, Romance Film, Tragedy, Film adaptation, Indie, Crime Fiction, Drama
Year: 2000
Country: United States of America
Language: English Language
Starring: Ethan Hawke, Kyle MacLachlan, Bill Murray, Diane Venora, Liev Schreiber, Julia Stiles, Sam Shepard, Steve Zahn, Casey Affleck, Dechen Thurman, Karl Geary, Jeffrey Wright, Paula Malcomson, Paul Bartel
Hamlet (also referred to as Hamlet 2000) is a 2000 American film written and directed by Michael Almereyda, set in contemporary New York City, and based on the Shakespeare play of the same name. Ethan Hawke plays Hamlet as a film student, Julia Stiles co-stars as Ophelia, Laertes by Liev Schreiber, Uncle Claudius by Kyle MacLachlan, and Polonius by Bill Murray.
In this version of Hamlet, Claudius becomes King and CEO of "Denmark Corporation", having taken over the firm by killing his brother, Hamlet's father.
This adaptation keeps the Shakespearean dialogue but presents a modern setting, with technology such as video cameras, Polaroid cameras, and surveillance bugs. For example, the ghost of Hamlet's murdered father first appears on closed-circuit TV.
The reviews of this film have been divided. Metacritic, a review aggregator, assigned the film a weighted average score of 70/100, based on 32 reviews from mainstream critics. According to Rotten Tomatoes, 56% of the critics gave positive reviews based on 82 reviews, while 67% of the major critics (listed as "Top Critics") gave favorable reviews. Film critic Elvis Mitchell of the New York Times lauded it as a "vital and sharply
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