About

Wikipedia writes:

Hamlet, also referred to as Hamlet 2000, is an American film by Michael Almereyda, released in 2000, set in contemporary New York City, and based on the Shakespeare's 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 is played 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.

Similar to Romeo + Juliet, the film 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 film was met with mixed reviews, including some very negative ones. While reviews praised the contemporary setting ("glossy and sterile, with sleek chrome and glass and stark black and white"), others found it boring, tacky, poorly directed, and a butchering of Shakespeare's play. "Almereyda's Hamlet is just a superficial treatment, uncomplicated and often unfathomable...". Hawke's performance is also criticised: "Hamlet, by contrast, is often unintelligible. And the worst offender, unfortunately, is Ethan Hawke. He doesn't sound as if he comprehends much of his own speeches, and I didn't have an easy time either, especially since he mumbles his way through almost all of his lines, as if that were the only way he can signify that he's bummed out" (Beth Armitage, writing in popmatters).

IMDB writes:

• Diane Venora, who plays Queen Gertrude, played Ophelia in a made-for-television version of Hamlet (1990/II) (TV) starring and directed by 'Kevin Kline (I)'.
  
  
• Sam Shepard also played Ethan Hawke's father in Snow Falling on Cedars (1999).
  
  
• Ophelia removes a rubber duck from her bag. This is a reference to Aki Kaurismäki's version of Hamlet, Hamlet liikemaailmassa (1987), where after the death of his father, Hamlet's uncle controls the board of a company that decides to move into the rubber duck market.
  
  

• The only lines in the movie which are not from the original play are messages played by machines, or when the GraveDigger is singing a song ("All Along the Watchtower").
  
  
• In the scene in which Claudius confronts Hamlet in the laundromat, he pushes Hamlet from machine 2 to machine 3. This correlates with Shakespeare's play, in which the confrontation begins in Act IV, scene 2 and continues on to scene 3.
  
  
• The Fax machine seen near the end of the film is the "Osric.". Osric is the name of the messenger in the play that informs Hamlet Laertes has challenged him.
  
  
• In keeping with the modernized presence of all things Shakespeare throughout the film, Hamlet travels on a plane. This is also a play on words because in the original text of the play the scene takes place in "A plain in Denmark".
  
  
• The average full stage production of 'Hamlet' clocks in at around 4 hours. This film version only lasts 112 minutes.
  
  
• Both Diane Venora and Liev Schreiber have previously acted in productions of 'Hamlet' on the New York stage. In fact, Venora had actually played the title character in a famous and iconoclastic production of the play.
  
  
• The third screen adaptation in nine years of the classic play.
  
  
• At 29, Ethan Hawke is the youngest actor to play Hamlet on film.
  
  
• Paul Bartel's final film role.
  
  
• The music that plays during the film the Mousetrap is part of Tchaikovsky's "Hamlet", op. 67.
  
  
• When Hamlet stops the limo after deciding not to kill his uncle, Claudius, he exits at a theater billing the Best Musical of 1998 - the live-action stage version of "The Lion King". "The Lion King" is reportedly inspired by "Hamlet".
  
  
• Archive footage of John Gielgud as Hamlet appears briefly on this Hamlet's computer screen.

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