Hamlet vs Mel Gibson

After I got done reading Hamlet, I went to watch the movie online which features Mel Gibson as Hamlet. The movie was much better than the older versions and other adaptations. It’s like comparing The Dark Knight Rises to the original batman. It has more drama, better quality, and the actors are a lot more energetic and alive. Surprisingly, the movie went along well with the play and there aren’t many major changes unlike other movies adapted from books such as: Frankenstein, Dracula, Harry Potter, Hobbit, The Godfather. The movie was so similar that I was able to read along with the play as I watched the movie.

       What I like about the movie is that most of the actors are more emotional and exciting so the movie doesn’t drag and it keeps the audience on the edge of their seats. Each soliloquy is more dramatic than the last and builds tension towards the next scene. The settings in each act plays perfectly to the tone and the audience gets the full effect of what each character is feeling. Whereas in the play, I got bored after the second soliloquy and can’t understand what the character is trying to get across. You get this “Can we just move on to the next scene” feeling and can’t wait to put this play down.

       One of my favorite scenes in the movie is Gonzago’s play and Claudius’s reaction to it. In the play, it just tells you that the king felt shocked and went to his room. In the movie, you experience the full emotion of the king and see the guilty conscience overtaking his mind. It’s like déjà vu in an extreme, to see your actions and the exact way you killed the king in front of everyone and you don’t know if people suspect you.

       There are some minor adjustments to the movie that aren’t really noticeable until you actually examine to movie and the play in depth. There was a funeral scene at the beginning of the movie, Polonius found out by spying on Hamlet and Ophelia instead of having Ophelia tell him about Hamlet’s condition, and some dialogues were cut short to prevent the movie from getting dull. One thing I didn’t like about the movie in general is that it is dramatic but there wasn’t a lot of blood or intense violence. But if you were reading the play, you can let your mind and imagination do the work and create as many vivid and bloody scenes in your head. I want someone to produce a Hamlet movie that has more blood, gore, sex scenes, and preferably R rated.

       I believed that Mel Gibson is the perfect actor to play Hamlet. He has the persona and quality of Hamlet and he is kind of dark and scheming in most of his movies like Braveheart, Apocalypto, Lethal Weapon, and Edge of Darkness.