Titus

source: Titus

This is certainly one of the worst films I know. Totally unwatchable. Nothing historic about it. A drag. I couldn't even watch all. I fast forwarded through the film and even that was boring. Forget it. I can't possibly recommend it for any reason.

I must admit I'm not a Shakespeare fan, the dialogue is so out of date and lacking easy understanding that it's just huge hard work to even follow what is happening. Hopkins is no doubt an excellent actor, and the sets were spectacular. However, due to the phenomenally boring dialogue this just became unwatchable and I had to turn it off before it had finished. No doubt the unbelievably boring Shakespeare enthusiasts would have a go at me -- but why cannot people innovate more and base films etc on his storytelling without using the language word for word? It's just so outdated and inappropriate in modern times.

At first I thought the film was a mess. I was so confused, a kid in the modern world get kidnapped into the past? And in ancient Rome they have modern buildings and even jeeps? These anachronisms really annoyed me. The pace was slow and I thought I would have a hard time to endure the 2.5 hours. Then as the film progressed I liked the film. The obvious anachronisms were probably deliberate (eg using machine guns for execution), and I thought this was an interesting idea. However, I think the directing can improve a bit. Especially the scene when Aaron was standing at the balcony facing the camera for a speech. That looked like some kind of a travel show, with the host standing still in front of a scenic background. If the camera was not static I would have liked this scene more.

Talk about a whole new experience! Typically, Shakespearean films tend to follow the styles and settings of the time they depict, but Titus seemed to take on a different approach which took me by surprise. The art design was tremendous, and the neo-futuristic wasteland-style settings were awesome. This film was creepy, so dark, that it the postmodern aesthetic it was attempting to portray was an axiom based on a time we have yet to see. While the acting proved to be nonplus in some areas, considering they were trying very hard to keep to the speaking style. In my opinion, they should have used a more modern set of dialogue, one which reflects the state of society they were depicting.

This movie is, perhaps, the second worst that I have ever seen in my lifetime of watching movies. The director is entirely unskilled at making movies, and furthermore seems to have an enormous amount of personal vanity, this based on the interview segments of the DVD. The main problem with the story, however, is the setting. It is set in the modern age, with guns, cars, and bombs, in the country of Rome. Apparently the screenwriter was too stupid to notice that Rome is no longer a nation. The film tries very hard to be entertaining, to tell a coherent story, and fails. If it failed in a spectacular way it would at least be funny, something to laugh at, but it does not do this. This is easily the worst adaptation of Shakespeare that i have ever seen, worse even than all of Branaugh's attempts to ruin the works. Not worth the almost three hours it takes to watch. I hate this movie.

I will admit that I'd never heard of Shakespeare's play "Titus Andronicus" until the movie "Titus" came out - it was one of ol' Bill's lesser known works. This may be one of the harder Shakespeare plays to understand, but it basically has Emperor Titus (Anthony Hopkins) returning from battle only to find doom back home. The opening scene of the boy playing with things was a little confusing itself (I'm assuming that the original play didn't feature that). A particularly interesting thing was that the movie got released in Portland around the same time that "Gladiator" came out, so there were two Rome-related flicks in theaters. Fairly interesting.

Julia Taymor did the best job possible with this rubbish... Titus Andronicus is reckoned to be one of Shakespeare's worst plays. Not that it doesn't flow nicely, but the heaps of corpses and buckets of blood don't have any deeper meaning or philosophy. It helps to know that WS wrote Titus Andronicus while still young - you can see how it's the 16th-century equivalent of blood-soaked modern crime shows. Anyhow, it should be an eye-opener for those who think of Shakespeare as a heap of manuscripts of interest only to scholars. Action devotees should enjoy this more than other Shakespeare. Taymor has included a frame-story about a boy playing with toys who then become characters in the story, also there are many shifts between ancient and modern settings. It's a bit pretentious and incomprehensible, but highly cinematic - it was probably the only way of getting a watchable movie out of such degraded material. Anyway, hats off to Taymor for taking on such a difficult project.

I love "Titus". True, it is long and uneven, the first half is much faster than the second half but it is very worthwhile. Julie Taymor brings a very beautifully stunning adaptation of Shakespeare's worst play. I am not a fan of feature movies that are done in a theatrical way. I couldn't stand "Edward II". But I just love the beginning with the choreographed troops. It is fresh and original. The performances are very good. Anthony Hopkins does Hannibal Lecter all over again, and it works. Jessica Lange is back from the depths of "Hush" when she was, how should I put this in a nice way: almost as horrible as Uma Thurman in "Batman and Robin". This is the Jessica Lange of "Rob Roy". Wonderful and over-the-top. Finally, I love the ending. Certainly is not as compelling as the "Scream"'s ending, but it is very outrageous. Utterly disgusting and funny. I couldn't stop laughing when Titus told them they had eaten Tamora's sons. An amazing achievement. 9/10