Branagh's Hamlet, And Why It Sucks

Kenneth Branagh has always been a bit of a cipher to me, at least in terms of his work. Some of his movies are awesome, like Henry V, Much Ado About Nothing, and Thor. Others are too far out in Cloudcuckooland for me to even begin to comprehend, like As You Like It and Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. His acting is much the same; I love him in Wallander, Henry V, and Harry Potter, but loathe him in Wild Wild West and Othello. He is a polarizing figure, mostly because there is no such thing as a mediocre movie with him; he is either outrageously bad or outrageously good.

His Hamlet (1996) appears to be an amalgam of the man. There are parts I like, and then there are parts I hate. The difference between him and the film is that the parts I hate in the film outweigh what I don't by a good bit.