Cymbeline

The opening sequence was hypnotic, but why are we forced to read line after line after line of some bizarre story about a king and a motorcycle gang, and.... I already didn't care and was bored out of my mind. Then the first main scene started, and we get to see 2 people kissing. for bout 5 minutes. ..... And nothing else........ Wow. Gripping. The Ed Harris enters the scene and starts reciting Shakespeare, in a monotone voice that could only have come from massive amounts of drugs. Then his wife (the Queen? Whahhhh ???) joins the gang on screen, and sounds even more lifeless and bored than Ed Harris did. Computer-generated voices, reading the phone book, are far more interesting than whatever this is. If I watch the rest of this flick, I will surely have to kill myself, so I'm stopping now. Fifteen minutes in and it's already the worst movie I've seen in years. You've been warned.

I didn't understand one word of this super boring movie

Although most of the lines in the play are missing, I didn't have much trouble following the plot and characters. There are a lot of characters, but thankfully most of the actors' faces can't be confused with one another. I would have liked to have more dialog retained from the developing confrontation between Clotus and Guiderius, because it seems to become violent for insufficient reason. Overall, though, I think that the dialog works well because it isn't recited in a stentorian style. Everyone is rather quiet, even when making terrible threats, and I think the quietness is what saves the language from incongruity in the modern setting. On the other hand, after a while there seems to be a bit too much quiet, a lack of excitement. If the excitement won't come from the drama of Shakespeare's language, where can it come from? The movie refrains from digressing into manic action sequences, * scenes, stunt- heavy car chases, or dance numbers, and that's fine, but it doesn't grip us with the characterizations either and so I'm afraid it remains a neatly accomplished intellectual exercise.

Basing the story to a William Shakespeare play, the screenplay tries to incorporate a different breath of world by differently changing the time and place setting into contemporary USA. Yet this attempt, feels only half done since there are still lots of elements kept from the play that feels to much in disarray when it's brought to the contemporary time setting. For instance, changing the background from a vassal king against a general into a mere biker gang leader against a police chief is downright degrading the plot of it's glory. Yet I still appreciate this movie due to it features many big and up-and-coming names in movies. It's nice to see performances by Ethan Hawke, John Leguizamo, Ed Harris, Anton Yelchin, Dakota Johnson and many others in this movie.

. . . with the help of Mr. Grey's "Anastasia" (Dakota Johnson) is sure to attract more involuntary attendees (that is, students forced to see CYMBELINE by their teachers) than Uncoerced paying customers. The fact that this adaptation, reset to a modern environment featuring the use of ubiquitous TV screens (Barack Obama makes a cameo appearance), note pads, GPS, iPhones, and Selfies at every turn, cannot hold a candle to "Gandalf" (Ian McKellen) as RICHARD III a few years ago in a similar "updating" probably is more the fault of the Bard having provided lesser source material than it is of Ms. Johnson's lackluster "Imogen" here, or any other miscasting decision. I mean, if CYMBELINE is supposed to be a tragedy, LOTS of heads should roll, not just the jester's. The plot is rife with tons of chances for unwitting incest, or at the very least a Romeo\Juliet-style slew of ill-timed suicides, but we only get one self-snuffing, paired with the single rolling Noggin'. Worse yet, both victims deserved to die. Where's the pity in THAT?!

At least that's what the German distributor would like you to believe that is. What it is though, is a Shakespeare piece thrown into the modern world, but with the same dialogue you'll find in his books. So some words may seem inappropriate considering the time it plays, but that's up to the viewer to decide if he or she will fall for that. The actors are decent actually and they know their Shakespeare. But that might not help the viewer actually enjoying this. It does seem amateurish at times too. And again not the actors fault. Having said that, I'm not sure "real" dialogue would have changed my perspective on the movie overall. The drama is there (it was in the book), but the delivery script and shooting wise lacks a lot ...

I knew I was going to see it when I saw the poster in my local theater, and when I read the summary, I was hooked. Ethan Hawk as a cop at war with a biker gang who's leader is played by Ed Harris. That sounds like a winner. The movie had the gritty tone of an early 80s action movie thanks to the electronic music that simmers through the picture. Someone is definitely paying homage to the 80's which is in right now. Than the Shakespearean dialog begins to break out, which started to make what I thought would be just a mediocre gritty tale with an all-star cast, far more interesting. What I like about this adaptation of William Shakespeare is that the actors were reading the lines with their own dialect. It was not done like it was a stage play they made it like a movie. Best example is with John Leguizamo who delivered the lines of big Willie with the attitude of the Latino raised New Yorker he is. Too bad he did not have more lines in the movie, after all this is not his first time adapting Shakespeare to the big screen. Like the Leguizamo starring Romeo and Juliet, Cymbeline is a bit sir-realistic. This was done as a way to stay true to the play it was adapted from and yet give it the modern day twist of being set in the present, with Rome being portrayed as a contemporary metropolitan and Ed Harris character status as the leader of the biker gang being treated like Royalty. I think I would have preferred a little more looseness with the adaptation in order to make it more original, but that's a small pet peeve to an otherwise entertaining movie.

"I live in fear, though this Heavenly angel, Hell is here." Cymbeline (Harris) is the leader of a biker gang and the ruler of his family. His daughter Imogen (Johnson) is sought after and is loved by her family. When rivals attempt to seduce and steal Imogen away from her family and the one she loves things take a tragic turn. This leads Cymbeline on a quest for revenge. Going in I didn't realize this was a Shakespeare play. When I found that out I was nervous. I am not a big fan at all. I did like the Romeo & Juliet with DiCaprio and Coriolanus with Ralph Fiennes but other than that I have not really enjoyed the recent adaptations. This falls under that category. It could be because I'm not a fan and the whole movie is done in the old English but I found it very confusing to determine what was going on. Fans of Shakespeare will most likely not have this problem but as for me I was just too confused and uninterested to really pay attention to and get involved with. Overall, Shakespeare fans will get into this, I just could not. I give it a C+.

This film is a modern plus classical hybrid of the Shakespearean play, Cymbeline. After watching just a few minutes, I already wished I didn't choose this film. It's an interesting idea to put new modern scenes onto Shakespearean dialogue, but it doesn't work at all. Shakespeare fans will be appalled by the millions of anachronisms in the film, while everyone else will be put off by the archaic dialogue. A similar endeavour, "Titus" starring Anthony Hopkins already demonstrated that this hybrid doesn't work, so it's quite unfortunate that the filmmakers attempt it again. I really wonder why so many famous actors agreed to star in it. One more thing, I like Dakota Johnson in "Fifty Shades of Grey", but in this film her forehead is so overly botoxed that she could not even muster a single wrinkle even when faced with much distress. Even Milla Jovovich managed some! I watched " Cymbeline" until the end, and trust me it did not get any better. If you don't like the first scene, then switch it off right away.