Spidersecu Don't Believe the Hype

Nayan Gough A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

Mathilde the Guild Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

Fleur Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

Eric Stevenson I admit to being confused as to why this version of a Shakespeare play took place in much more recent times. At first, I thought it was talking about World War II, but instead it's some alternate civil war that the English fought. It's a pretty strange choice. It seems weird to modernize a story that wouldn't make sense within its new timeline. Still, this is a great movie if only because of the fantastic actors. I never realized how prolific Robert Downey Jr. is or how he's awesome in so many of his roles.It's actually quite faithful to the play. Well, I actually think this was based on another play that was based on the original play. They do that with Shakespeare a lot, I suppose. With the most credited writer ever, that makes sense. The best parts are easily when Ian McKellan (Richard III) directly talks to the audience. You get a real sense of intimacy with this guy in those scenes. I'm glad he keeps it up. The best single part is the final battle scene which is well worth the wait. It didn't seem as violent as other Shakespeare films, but it does get better near the end. Any great actors with a great writer can work anywhere. ***1/2

Robert J. Maxwell I've avoided Shakespeare in modern settings. Before this I'd only watched Olivier's version and read the play. And, I regret to say that all the way through this film the setting -- 1930s "Germany" -- was a bit of a distraction. You have never seen so many people smoking cigarettes. What saved the movie was the performances. Ian McKellen is far more a rude lump of foul deformity than Olivier ever even suggested and his performance as the central figure is superb, all squinched up, skinny and ugly. Richard the Turd, some have called him.But then everybody is pretty good, with Robert Downey, Jr., perhaps the weakest of the lot. Kristin Scott-Thomas as Lady Anne is a close second to McKellen. She's also very attractive. Kate Steavonson-Payne has only a few lines but makes a succulent Princess Elizabeth. The exopthalmic Maggie Smith, as usual, sets the screen alight and Edward Hardwicke is the soul of morality as Dr. Watson -- I mean Stanley.The story is familiar enough,. Richard, a deformed cripple, murders his way to the top. The first victim we learn about is Lady Anne's husband. McKellen has had him murdered and Scott-Thomas knows it. But he confronts her in the morgue where she is lamenting her late husband's fate over his body, which has two holes in its chest. Richard woos her on the spot. Yes, he says, he killed her husband -- but only because he loves her so much. He proffers a dagger and invites her to cut his throat. When she demurs, he claims he can do it himself, but she refuses the offer because of his "honey'd words." Not only that. She looks at him a little curiously and not much later falls under his spell. It always struck me that Lady Anne was kind of dumb.The final battle takes place in a burned-out city, something like the Saigon of Kubrick's "Full Metal Jacket." I was waiting to see how the hell they would work, "A horse! A horse! MY KINGDOM FOR A HORSE!" into a battle that has tanks plunging through walls and jeeps with machine guns zooming around in a confusing manner and not a horse in sight. They did manage to work the famous line in, though. I won't say how. The closing scene is surreal -- Richard is shot and plunges to his death in some kind of bonfire, laughing maniacally all the way, and then Al Jolson is singing "Top of the World." And I'm thinking: homage to Cagney? Production design and related elements aside, what impressed me was how much of the play Olivier had left out and McKellen, who wrote it, has managed to squeeze in and how the text of the play itself was at least equally mangled.

crooow-2 First the good: the movement to modern neo-fascism was interesting, the twist on many of the speeches was fascinating (which is one of the pleasures of re-doing Shakespeare - viz. the interpretation), McKellen is great, and most of the supporting cast is solid.What I didn't like as much: some of the choices regarding what dialogue to keep and what to discard. Losing some of the opening soliloquy was unnecessary and a crime to Richard III fans. Benning and Downey Jr are not good in this - I like them in other films but here they sounded as if they were reciting lines that they had carefully memorized - very unnatural. But mostly where I think this falls short of the Olivier version is in the believability of Richard as a charmer. Olivier makes you believe that Richard could fool people. In this version, Richard is so blatantly evil that nobody could be deceived by him. Maybe they aren't supposed to be in this version but Richard III is one of the all-time great villains because he could charm people (a la Hannibal Lecter). Not here.

Alain English Richard Loncraine's fantastic production of "Richard III" is easily one of the best Shakespeare adaptations I have seen, and this one even betters the Olivier version of Richard III done several decades before.Loncraine moves the action to 1930's England and parallels the rise of the scheming Richard to that of Fascism across Europe in the same period, most notable in the costuming and army props that chillingly resemble Nazi paraphernalia.Ian McKellen is a fantastic Richard, snide and scheming but not entirely unsympathetic. Despite his vile actions, I found myself rooting for him, despite his inevitable downfall at the end.The screenplay makes the action comprehensible in a way that Olivier's version did not. Through all the intrigue, betrayal and double-crosses it is entirely clear what is happening and why. Much of the text has been cut and some of the characters merged in order to do this but, nevertheless, it's impressive feat.Maggie Smith, Jim Broadbent, Kirsten Scott-Thomas and Nigel Hawthorne deliver well-rounded performances in the chief supporting roles, and there is even an American element plausibly worked in through the presence of US actors Annette Bening and Robert Downey Jr.It was released some time ago now but get it out while you can. It's a treat.