CheerupSilver
Very Cool!!!
Afouotos
Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.
Humbersi
The first must-see film of the year.
maxwellhayden
Porsepr and Mrinanda have adventuer wiht Clabin and Arlie. Alogn the way, tehy meet Frediandn, Aonslo, Garbonzo, Sbestani, Andtonyo, Stoveno, Tincruile, and BOTSWEN. Trogeth, tehy make frendis wiht Siri and Alexa. This is so sad Alexa play Despacito.
gcsman
"...like the baseless fabric of this vision, the cloud-capp'd towers, the gorgeous palaces, the solemn temples, the great globe itself ... shall dissolve and, like this insubstantial pageant faded, leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff as dreams are made on, and our little life is rounded with a sleep." What actor or actress wouldn't give their eye teeth to deliver those lines? No other writer in the English language can conjure up such transcendently strong, evocative language. The Tempest was the last play that Shakespeare wrote entirely by himself, and it's hard to avoid the feeling that this was the master's farewell flourish. If you haven't seen this movie, it's absolutely worth it. Ignore the negative posts; I have no idea what their problem is. I rate this as among the best Shakespeare adaptations specifically for the screen, along with Zeffirelli's "Romeo and Juliet" and Branagh's "Much Ado About Nothing" and a very few others.
When this movie was released there was predictably a minor flap about the central character of the old magician/sage Prospero (here, Prospera) being played by a woman. But it turns out to be no problem at all; with some extremely small adjustments to the text, everything works just fine, including the parent/child relationship (Prospera/Miranda) which is now mother/daughter. And Helen Mirren, one of our greatest living actresses, sells it. Converting Shakespeare to film carries both advantages and risks, but one advantage is an extra dimension of nuance: with effective use of close-ups the actors can act with subtle facial expressions as well as with dialog and body language. And Mirren does this very effectively indeed -- watch her face carefully in every one of her scenes. This movie also doesn't shy away from the full text; it's delivered clearly and for anyone not so familiar with Shakespeare's wording this is as good a place to start as any. Another advantage of film is the ability to use special effects, which this movie uses especially for the airy spirit Ariel (an excellent Ben Whishaw) and for the final "vision" sequence. These work well, they add to the overall feel of the play, and (avoiding the risk) they're not overdone. Compared with other Shakespeare plays the list of characters is relatively small, and although there's no doubt this is Helen Mirren's film, the rest of the cast is uniformly good. Felicity Jones is a really nice and convincing Miranda, Djimon Hounsou gives a strongly portrayed version of the conflicted Caliban, and the shipwrecked nobles (David Strathairn, Alan Cumming, Chris Cooper, Reeve Carney, Tom Conti) are uniformly good. The biggest problem area with The Tempest (as a play) is with the "fools" (the comic relief, here played by Alfred Molina and Russell Brand): relative to other plays they just aren't that funny and they seem to be just a distraction to the main story, but to their credit Molina and Brand pull off just about the best versions of them that I've seen.Kudos to director Julie Taymor for giving us this. She's someone with genuine vision and is no stranger to Shakespeare either -- see her eccentrically powerful version of Titus Andronicus ("Titus" 1999, with Anthony Hopkins) as one other example.
chaswe-28402
It has to be reckoned something of an achievement for Taymor to have delivered such a reverse reading of this play. Prospero is Shakespeare's autobiography, and he is not a woman. The island landscape here is barrenly lunar, Icelandic even, rather than mysteriously magical. Caliban should be a Carib, not an African, in spite of being the son of Sycorax of Algiers. Ariel seemed reasonably impressive to me, but the best part was delivered by Felicity Jones as Miranda, as the fifteen year old being introduced to adulthood. But the shipwrecked crew do not exactly represent a brave new world to me. Brand and Molina are not funny in the slightest, but then few of Shakespeare's clowns raise a smile these days. Ferdinand is a complete non-entity. It was disconcerting to recognise (just) Tom Conti. Mirren was not really at her best. The play resembles many of Shakespeare's works in that it is positively stuffed with quotations, familiar to anyone with anything approaching a halfway reasonable education. Still, I must admit that I followed the action with some interest, and was engaged by a desire to discover what would unfold. An oddity, not without merit. The extra feature was worth while.
TheLittleSongbird
The Tempest is a wonderful but complicated play, and while I can understand the reactions of those who disliked it, I thoroughly enjoyed this one who I saw for the treasure that is Helen Mirren. It is not perfect, there are times where the delivery was a little too garbled or fast and Russell Brand gives a performance so lacking in subtlety that he did seem out of place to me. However, Helen Mirren is as ever magnificent as Prospera, with a commanding presence, intense delivery and sense of character and an urging sense of bitterness. Felicity Jones is an excellent Miranda, David Strathairn's Alonso is magnetic and Dijimon Hounsou is a Caliban that is both terrifying and sympathetic. Alfred Molina and Chris Cooper prove themselves to be scene-stealers, Ben Whishaw is an effective Ariel who as a spirit looks wonderful and Alan Cumming plays it straight and is good at it no matter how strange it initially is. Julie Taymor's direction is compelling and creative, especially in the character relationships, you feel the spiritual connection between Ariel and Prospera, the sadness of Caliban and Prospera's sorrowful weariness at the end and the idea to have Caliban as Prospera's shadow self was convincing. The visuals are spectacular, right from the palaces, towers, columns and the scenery itself helped by well-above average effects and sweeping cinematography. The dialogue is as poetic and witty as ever, and while some may find the rock music jarring, while it is not my kind of music, it did give some energetic flavour to the songs. All in all, not a movie that everybody is going to like, but while not perfect I thoroughly enjoyed it. 8/10 Bethany Cox
