Warner Bros. Pictures | Release Date: January 18, 1991 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
53
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 18 Critic Reviews
Positive:
8
Mixed:
7
Negative:
3
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50
Baltimore SunStephen Hunter
Zeffirelli has managed to make Shakespeare's greatest and most modern play one-dimensional. [13 Jan 1991]
50
It's acceptable Shakespeare - no more arbitrary than most stage productions, especially the willfully anachronistic ones, or the ones with political agendas thrust upon them. [18 Jan 1991]
50
If Zeffirelli's Hamlet does resemble an actual movie at several points, it's thanks almost entirely to the inventive and atmospheric lighting of veteran cinematographer David Watkin, whose somber, gray-green palette gives the film a dignity and substance it would otherwise lack. [18 Jan 1991]
60
Most of the rest of this Hamlet effective or lovely as parts of it may be, just keeps sawing at the air in a drafty hall and pouring all its light on Mel Gibson and his angelic stubble. [18 Jan 1991]
75
Portland OregonianTed Mahar
Zeffirelli's Hamlet is lively, energetic and suspenseful. [18 Jan 1991]
25
Franco Zeffirelli's Hamlet, a senselessly adapted, ill-conceived, poorly acted mess of a film that's guaranteed to frustrate anyone who loves the play and to put everybody else to sleep. [18 Jan 1991]
83
This great Elizabethean masterpiece comes alive in a rich cinematic version that proves the past 400 years have done nothing to dim its uncanny power to mirror the human condition. [18 jan 1991]
75
The cinematic strategies are energetic without being vulgar, the words are plain-spoken, and moony Mel's melancholy is what matinee idols are made of. [18 Jan 1991]