Hamlet

I don't understand what this is trying to say. The costumes, the setting, the casting--they all add up to nonsense. Ian McKellen has never looked so much like he's phoning in his performance. Maybe that's just how an older Hamlet is supposed to be played, but that's where better casting would have helped. He's so old compared to everyone else onscreen (and has so obviously given every soliloquy a million times) that the other actors fail to match up with him. McKellen's sullen, sunken, lived-in performance clashes with the more vibrant and 'modern' styles of the younger actors. I don't really see why this exists unless it's to keep up someone's membership in one or another actors union (which is perfectly fine). Very bizarre.