Eye For Film >> Movies >> Hamlet (2000) DVD Review
For a film that boasts striking cinematography and some excellent choices of locations, the picture and sound quality are excellent. However, the dark cinematography will be tough to view on smaller screens and certainly loses the impact of the cinema. My advice is to find yourself a friendly mate with a superb widescreen!
There are few extras. There's the trailer (ooh! thrilling!) and access to 12 scenes. Extrawise, it's a pretty poor package given the amount you could put on this disc: some info on why the modern-day setting was chosen and how certain elements of the play (including the language) were subsequently handled would have been welcome. How about a retrospective of other film versions of the play? Or more on Carter Burwell who provides the formidable soundtrack, ranging from Mahler to modern gritty indie music?
Yet again the DVD loses out as the distributors fail to place any faith in a reasonably good film.
Reviewed on: 31 Aug 2001