KnotMissPriceless Why so much hype?

TinsHeadline Touches You

BeSummers Funny, strange, confrontational and subversive, this is one of the most interesting experiences you'll have at the cinema this year.

Josephina Great story, amazing characters, superb action, enthralling cinematography. Yes, this is something I am glad I spent money on.

chaswe-28402 It has to be reckoned something of an achievement for Taymor to have delivered such a reverse reading of this play. Prospero is Shakespeare's autobiography, and he is not a woman. The island landscape here is barrenly lunar, Icelandic even, rather than mysteriously magical. Caliban should be a Carib, not an African, in spite of being the son of Sycorax of Algiers. Ariel seemed reasonably impressive to me, but the best part was delivered by Felicity Jones as Miranda, as the fifteen year old being introduced to adulthood. But the shipwrecked crew do not exactly represent a brave new world to me. Brand and Molina are not funny in the slightest, but then few of Shakespeare's clowns raise a smile these days. Ferdinand is a complete non-entity. It was disconcerting to recognise (just) Tom Conti. Mirren was not really at her best. The play resembles many of Shakespeare's works in that it is positively stuffed with quotations, familiar to anyone with anything approaching a halfway reasonable education. Still, I must admit that I followed the action with some interest, and was engaged by a desire to discover what would unfold. An oddity, not without merit. The extra feature was worth while.

glasslens A few years after my original review, I have re-watched some of this film and have tried to be kinder. This is my amended version. I am sorry to still have to be so negative and I'm sure others have enjoyed it, but I can only say what I think. Whenever I write a review, I always think hard about how to start. But in this case, it is easy. This could have been fairly good, but sadly it is a truly dreadful film. The difference between a good film and a bad film can be a few small things and usually they are the things that destroy the magic. The Tempest of course is all about magic but the film destroys it. Totally. I'm sure the idea was saleable, particularly with the then celebrity Russell Brand in a lead role, but things must have started to go downhill from then on. There must have been times when they wanted to cut their losses and abandon it, but they pressed on hoping the SPFX would rescue it - instead it just made it worse. Julie Traymor's direction leaves a lot to be desired - she seems to be constantly struggling to hold things together. The use of a female lead is baffling although the actor, Helen Mirren, who normally plays the Queen of England, does a good job and manages to hold the whole tottering mess in some sort of shape. Tom Conti, a fine actor, manages to get through the laughable screenplay with his dignity intact, as does Alan Cumming. Dijimon Hounsou however is the worst Caliban I have even seen, and I have seen quite a few - again a good concept that didn't work. Alfred Molina, again a fine if limited range actor manages to keep his head down and put in a passable performance. Russell Brand is unspeakably awful as Trinculo - an idiot over-acting if ever their was. Again, good concept but didn't work. Stuart Dryberg's cinematography is patchy. The early exterior shots are useful for a "how not to" at a film school truly some of the worst exterior lighting since Dad's Army. Look at the credits and you'll find a huge crew who managed under Taymore's direction to product a piece of rubbish - why didn't someone speak up for goodness sake? But perhaps they knew but with all that money at stake, just couldn't abandon things. A new director for sure, a lot of re-shoots, a new Trinculo perhaps could have rescued it. But perhaps not.I have worked on amateur productions of this fine play which have been infinitely superior to this awful film and I would not insult amateurs by describing this as amateur - it is nowhere near that quality.

OttoVonB Julie Taymor (Frida, Titus) sets her sights on the Bard's final masterpiece, recasting Prospero as Prospera (Hellen Mirren) and letting the magic and romance loose in this very different take on The Tempest.First, what works? Hellen Mirren does, rather unsurprisingly, and the art direction of photography are consistent with the vision of the woman who gave us Titus back in 1999. Kudos as well to the ever-watchable David Strathairn and Djimon Hounsou.What annoys? Now we enter very subjective ground. This beautiful, deceptively simple play is turned into an amped up to the max, loud and frantic film. The electric guitar whines are painfully out of place, and Russell Brand, never guilty of subtlety on a good day, will make you claw your own eardrums out. It's almost as if Taymor had forgotten we were right there with her cast, right behind the camera, instead of sitting 50ft back in a packed theater.This has proved an incredibly divisive film, and I feel split right down the middle on it. I admire Titus, in my mind one of the best Shakespeare adaptations in history, but whereas Taymor's turbocharged visuals and loud, often trashy use of sound and effects served as a perfect illustration for Shakesepare's bonkers gore-fest, it diminishes the more mature, heartfelt qualities of this play. The Tempest is a great playwright's swan song, the work of an aging, mature artist. Why would you give us an overly loud, ADD-afflicted MTV version? Ultimately, this frustrating missed opportunity makes you wonder, did Taymor have her Shakespeare mixed up all along. Rather than give us "the stuff that dreams are made of", she serves us "a tale, told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing".

Alireza S To give a review about any Shakespearian adaptation, we must begin with the faithfulness of the movie.This movie is completely faithful to the play and has all the major points of the plot. The dialogue is also Shakespearian and again faithful (except the parts that have to be changed because of "Prospera"). All in all, this movie conveys the spirit of Shakespeare's play.And I loved the comic scenes with Trinculo, "King" Stephano :D and Caliban. They really made me laugh in a scene when the third meets the first two.The only flaw is what all of us know. Why should Prospero become Prospera???!!! That is the question that can't be answered easily. That may be because the director is a woman and wants to show "Female Authority" (a term used frequently in Feminist texts). Because of this change of gender, some dialogues have to be changed too. And of course the mother/daughter relation is different from Father/daughter. That is, I believe, the only flaw in this movie (making my score 8 rather than 10).Other than this, everything is perfect.My Score: 8/10