Hamlet Details

This distinctive new take on Shakespeare's famous tragedy from writer/director Michael Almereyda retains the Bard's language but timewarps the story into a contemporary setting. Here, Hamlet soliloquises to a skull fragment plucked from his own eyebrow, embedded there when a sidekick kills a betrayer with a bullet through the brain. The silliness of the scene is proof that, while Shakespeare's grand themes may be universal and timeless, radical re-interpretations don't always come off. Generally, though, Almereyda's marriage of 16th-century words and 21st-century visuals, if occasionally too literal, works well. So, too, does the reinvention of Elsinore as a dodgy multinational corporation, with Hamlet a paranoid pawn caught up in the struggle for its control. Ethan Hawke makes for a strangely uncharismatic lead, but there are sparkier supporting turns from Bill Murray, Liev Schreiber, Julia Stiles and Kyle MacLachlan. As Shakespeare for the young and hip, however, this won't please the purists.

Intriguing modern updating of Shakespeare, in which video cameras, fax machines and instant photographs all play their part; the corporate setting diminishes the tragedy, but it still holds the attention.