Product Description: Richard is a charismatic malcontent who fights for the throne with a delicious mix of treachery seduction and murder. This screen adaption of a shakespeare play has the characters taken out of their original setting and reimagined in europe 1930. Special features: subtitles in french and spanish and much more. Studio: Tcfhe/mgm Release Date: 09/21/2004 Starring: Iam Mckellen Jim Broadbent Run time: 104 minutes Rating: R
Amazon.com: This film adaptation of a critically acclaimed stage production of Shakespeare's historical drama stars Ian McKellen in the title role. The setting is a comic-book vision of 1930s London: part art deco, part Third Reich, part industrial-age rust and rot. The play's force is turned into a synthetic high by art directors and storyboard sketchers, all of whom have a field day condensing the material into disposable pop imagery. This is a fun film, more than anything, so infatuated with its own monstrous stitchery that even the most awkward casting (Annette Bening and Robert Downey Jr.) seems a part of the ridiculous design. McKellen is the best thing about the movie, his mesmerizing portrayal of freakish despotism and poisoned desire a thing to behold. Directed by Richard Loncraine (Bellman and True). --Tom Keogh
Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1 Audience Rating: R (Restricted) Binding: DVD EAN: 9780792844044 Format: Closed-captioned, Color, DVD, Full Screen, Letterboxed, Widescreen, NTSC ISBN: 0792844041 Label: MGM (Video & DVD) Languages:EnglishOriginal LanguageDolby Digital 2.0 SurroundSpanishSubtitledFrenchSubtitled Manufacturer: MGM (Video & DVD) MPN: MGMD908419D Number Of Items: 1 Publisher: MGM (Video & DVD) Region Code: 1 Release Date: March 28, 2000 Running Time: 104 minutes Studio: MGM (Video & DVD) Theatrical Release Date: December 29, 1995
Customer Reviews
Simply Outstanding
I am no expert on Shakespear, so this review maybe of limited value. What I can write, however, is that never have I seen Shakespear done so well. The clever parrallels between the War of the Roses and 1930s Europe are most enjoyable.
Military buffs maybe a little disapointed with the T-55 tanks used in the filming (would have looked better with 1930s Cruiser, Matilda and early model panzers), but the rapid change in uniforms from psuedo British to Nazi SS is done masterfully.
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