HAMLET — *** — Ethan Hawke, Kyle MacLachlan, Julia Stiles, Diane Venora, Bill Murray, Liev Schreiber, Karl Geary, Sam Shepard, Steve Zahn, Dechen Thurman; based on the play by William Shakespeare; rated R (violence, gore, brief sex, nude artwork); exclusively at the Tower Theatre.
There's something very different — but definitely not rotten — about this state of Denmark.
For one thing, Denmark is not a state or even a country in filmmaker Michael Almereyda's media-savvy and heavily revisionist version of Shakespeare's over-adapted "Hamlet." Instead, it's a multimedia conglomerate located in modern-day New York City.
Oh yeah, and that melancholy Dane? He's metamorphosed into a pouty, twentysomething filmmaker wannabe, played by former Gen-X-spokesman-of-choice Ethan Hawke.
There are other major differences between this truncated version of the tale and the many others that preceded it (especially Kenneth Branagh's full-text, four-hour adaptation). But whether audiences will embrace this one probably depends on their reaction to those first two items.
Even though it's perhaps not as powerful as the material would suggest, the movie is just distinctive enough. And fortunately, the results aren't anywhere as jarring as the MTV-inspired, hip-hop version of "William Shakespeare's Romeo + Juliet," which became an undeserved hit three years ago.
Also, it's a mostly well-acted piece that falters only slightly because of a couple of wrongheaded moves.
Surprisingly, one of them is not the casting of Hawke, whose Hamlet is at least closer to the age Shakespeare intended him to be. He's just returned from college overseas and finds himself in the midst of tragedy.
His father (Sam Shepard), the president and CEO of Denmark Corp., has been killed. And Hamlet's mother (Diane Venora) has already remarried — to his uncle Claudius (Kyle MacLachlan), who many suspect of his father's murder.
The distraught lad immediately seeks comfort in the arms of Ophelia (Julia Stiles). But he's soon haunted by the specter of his dead father, who reveals that the ambitious Claudius was indeed behind the evil deed.
From there, Hamlet wavers between near madness and anger, eventually settling on revenge. To confirm his worst suspicions, he writes and directs a short film with none-too-subtle hints about his knowledge of the murder, which works almost too well.
The suddenly paranoid Claudius sics several of Hamlet's friends on him, including childhood pals Guildenstern and Rosencrantz (Dechen Thurman and the always terrific Steve Zahn), as well as Ophelia's brother, Laertes (Liev Schreiber), who has ample reason for vengeance of his own as the tragedies mount.
Again, several of Almereyda's innovations are risky, such as his odd staging of the play's most famous soliloquies (including setting Hamlet's "To be or not to be" speech in the middle of a chain video-store's action films section).
But they work better than you might expect, as does the rather unusual casting. Of the supporting performers, the real gem is Bill Murray — who is surprisingly effective playing Ophelia and Laertes' father, Polonius — although everyone has equally good moments.
However, as you might expect, the movie really rests on Hawke's shoulders. And while some traditionalists might carp about his less showy (or stagy) take on the character, it's more in keeping with the tone of this piece.
"Hamlet" is rated R for violence (gunplay and a brief swordfight), graphic gore and brief glimpses of sexual imagery and nude artwork. Running time: 112 minutes.
E-mail: jeff@desnews.com