Ten years or so ago, on the first occasion I sat through this, I felt it was something of a mighty miscalculation. I still think it’s one, but time has affected my response to Branagh’s florid approach. Adaptation, even unexpurgated adaptation, is all about choices, and his choices are commendably bold. If it’s a strange project to try and simultaneously honor Shakespeare, English stage tradition, Hollywood epic tradition, and Errol Flynn all at once, well, at least it’s original. I can give him many props – for breaking Hamlet out of the mould of moping Freudian loser, for finding the melodramatic pizzazz in the play, for locating the beating heart of its plot and progression. But it’s still not perfect. Branagh’s performance is uneven, and I still have the mighty feeling he miscast himself in the part. I doubt Branagh has had a moment of philosophical panic in his life, and it tells in his characterization. The extravagant moments tend to dull the weight of the work. The unedited text reveals that sometimes editing is a good thing – as great as Hamlet is as a play, it is also an occasionally verbose work, and quite often you have the impression of the actors speaking their lines as quickly as possible to get the more convoluted passages done with. Especially towards the start, there is some startlingly bad editing. The acting is generally marvelous, however, from unexpected contributions like Billy Crystal’s playful Gravedigger through to Richard Briers’ Polonius, which is one of the best performances I’ve seen anywhere, by anyone.
