Critical Reception
The reviews of this film have been divided. Metacritic, a review aggregator, assigned the film a weighted average score of 70/100, based on 32 reviews from mainstream critics. According to Rotten Tomatoes, 56% of the critics gave positive reviews based on 82 reviews, while 67% of the major critics (listed as "Top Critics") gave favorable reviews. Film critic Elvis Mitchell of The New York Times lauded it as a "vital and sharply intelligent film," while The Washington Post reviewer deemed it as a "darkly interesting distraction but not much more."
The reaction to Hawke's performance as the title role is also mixed. The Los Angeles Times described him as a "superb Prince of Denmark - youthful, sensitive, passionate but with a mature grasp of the workings of human nature." New York magazine, however, thought Hawke's performance was only "middling."
Read more about this topic: Hamlet (2000 film)
Famous quotes containing the words critical and/or reception:
“His misfortune was that he loved youthhe was weak to it, it kindled him. If there was one eager eye, one doubting, critical mind, one lively curiosity in a whole lecture-room full of commonplace boys and girls, he was its servant. That ardour could command him. It hadnt worn out with years, this responsiveness, any more than the magnetic currents wear out; it had nothing to do with Time.”
—Willa Cather (18731947)
“Satire is a sort of glass, wherein beholders do generally discover everybodys face but their own; which is the chief reason for that kind of reception it meets in the world, and that so very few are offended with it.”
—Jonathan Swift (16671745)