--- title: "Hamlet: the reviews" canonical: "https://film.one/film/hamlet-2000/reviews" title_page: "https://film.one/film/hamlet-2000" critics_score: 63 critics_reviews: 10 licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL." --- # Hamlet (2000): what the critics said Critics' score 63 from 10 reviews: 5 positive, 2 mixed, 3 negative. Most critics lean warm on Michael Almereyda’s decision to move the play to corporate Manhattan, with the first American notices the most enthusiastic. Praise clusters on the setting itself: the city treated as a character, the surveillance cameras and video diaries that lend the prince his paranoia, and the way modern trappings make familiar lines sound new. The supporting cast is the other point of agreement, Bill Murray’s Polonius and Julia Stiles’s Ophelia singled out even by reviewers who like little else. The reservations gather around Ethan Hawke. Several reviews find his slacker prince too passive to hold the centre, and the harsher notices say much of the cast cannot speak the verse. Others feel the cutting truncates the story, blunts its political edge and never reaches tragic weight. The spread is wide, from the Los Angeles Times’s near-rave to Total Film calling it tedious and crass, with the later British reviews markedly cooler than the American ones. ## Los Angeles Times Fi1m's normalised score 90/100 (inferred from the text). 12 May 2000. The critic highlights the vigor, insight, and originality of setting the story in present-day Manhattan, making Shakespeare accessible and provocative. Hawke delivers a superb performance as a youthful yet insightful prince in a gritty indie-style production. [Read the review](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2000-may-12-ca-29118-story.html) ## The New York Times — Elvis Mitchell Fi1m's normalised score 85/100 (inferred from the text). 12 May 2000. The critic praises Almereyda for rooting the adaptation in contemporary Manhattan, turning the city into a complex character full of beauty and squalor. The film is described as a vital, sharply intelligent update layered with paranoia from constant surveillance technology. [Read the review](https://www.nytimes.com/2000/05/12/movies/film-review-a-simpler-melancholy.html) ## The Guardian — Peter Bradshaw Fi1m's normalised score 80/100 (inferred from the text). 15 December 2000. The critic praises this stylish, inventive modern-dress Hamlet set in corporate New York as an intelligent and energetic take that refreshingly defamiliarises the play. He singles out the strong supporting turns, especially Julia Stiles as Ophelia and Bill Murray as Polonius, while noting some issues with the handling of soliloquies and loss of political edge. [Read the review](https://www.theguardian.com/film/2000/dec/15/1) ## The New Yorker — David Denby Fi1m's normalised score 80/100 (inferred from the text). 8 May 2000. The critic is charmed and gripped by the modern-dress staging in corporate New York, calling it a ripely melancholy version that is not a travesty despite some contemporary translations. It features a mischievous intelligence and sullen beauty, with effective use of video and setting. [Read the review](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2000/05/15/flesh-and-blood) ## Time Out — TCh Fi1m's normalised score 72/100 (inferred from the text). 10 September 2012. The film updates the story to contemporary New York with a slacker prince using gadgets and media, modernizing and streamlining the play without trivializing it. It amplifies poetic melodrama with ingenuity and energy but fails to muster tragic grandeur. [Read the review](https://www.timeout.com/movies/hamlet-3) ## The AV Club — Scott Tobias Fi1m's normalised score 60/100 (inferred from the text). 29 March 2002. The critic notes that Almereyda's modern corporate New York transposition is often a mess with a truncated story and mangled dialogue, but praises its inventive staging that uses incongruities between Shakespearean language and contemporary banality to illuminating effect. [Read the review](https://www.avclub.com/hamlet-1798195287) ## Variety Fi1m's normalised score 55/100 (inferred from the text). 31 January 2000. Festival review. The review finds the slacker prince a weak center in an otherwise conceptually vivid contemporary update, with fine support performances but an oft-ludicrous portrait. It is sporadically striking but never fully engrossing, with strong tech aspects. [Read the review](https://variety.com/2000/film/reviews/hamlet-11-1200460158/) ## Evening Standard Fi1m's normalised score 40/100 (inferred from the text). 10 April 2012. The critic views the updated version as shallow and reductive despite some inventive gimmickry, with an atmosphere of corporate sleaze and a failure by most of the cast to deliver Shakespeare's verse effectively. They single out the innovative use of CCTV and digital cameras as the production's best feature. [Read the review](https://www.standard.co.uk/culture/film/hamlet-7433409.html) ## Total Film Fi1m's normalised score 20/100 (inferred from the text). 15 December 2000. The critic finds Almereyda's modern update tedious and crass, with a stifling production design that feels alienating and a cast unable to deliver the material convincingly. They single out the drab scenery and lacklustre performances, particularly Ethan Hawke as Hamlet, as major failings. [Read the review](https://www.gamesradar.com/hamlet-review/) ## Eye for Film — Angus Wolfe Murray Fi1m's normalised score 35/100 (inferred from the text). 31 August 2001. The modern-dress update with technology gimmicks fails to make Hamlet more interesting, and Ethan Hawke lacks the necessary danger and energy as the prince. Bill Murray provides some compensation in a supporting role. [Read the review](https://www.eyeforfilm.co.uk/review/hamlet-film-review-by-angus-wolfe-murray) --- © Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Our review: https://film.one/film/hamlet-2000.md