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:
“Good critical writing is measured by the perception and evaluation of the subject; bad critical writing by the necessity of maintaining the professional standing of the critic.”
—Raymond Chandler (1888–1959)
“Satire is a sort of glass, wherein beholders do generally discover everybody’s 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 (1667–1745)