Word: chested
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...flashbacks, sudden cuts to action elsewhere, and repeated footage of the same scene. Branagh makes sure we don't miss his rebellious declaration of his interpretation of the relationship between Hamlet and Ophelia (Kate Winslet) by showing multiple flashes of their steamy love-making. Of course, Branagh's chest hair plays a prominent role in all. In reminding the audience of King Hamlet's gruesome death, Branagh feels it necessary to show over and over a close-up of his ear, bubbling under the skin's surface, and spurting blood. Perhaps the most unusual aspect of this production, emphasis...
...Chest hair. It all seems to boil down to chest hair. Kenneth Branagh set out on an audacious path when he decided to make his own film version of Hamlet, and the result is a film that is overall well-crafted and compelling. But this masterpiece, which Branagh directed, starred in and "wrote" himself, is often shot through with several glaring inconsistencies that take away from the power of the melodrama he has obviously worked hard to create...
...black throughout, coupled with a lengthy trench-coat and cape for dramatic effect -- a trick already employed in his not-so-classic redux of Frankenstein. Nevertheless, Hamlet often also dons a white poet shirt, baggy enough to shift the audience's focus in several lengthy scenes to Branagh's chest hair...
Even in the final fencing scene between Laertes and Hamlet, a fencing vest is worn featuring fake pecs and six-packs that would make Batman jealous. Later, Branagh's vest is removed to uncover a skin-tight tank top, revealing, of course, Branagh's chest hair. Not only does Branagh seem to wish desperately that he be immediately lauded as sex symbol of the decade, but he also employs some heavy-handed Christ imagery when he is carried out after Fortinbras' coronation. Branagh seems to be going for much more than an Oscar here...
...hour or so remaining after this intermission includes several of the weakest moments of the film, particularly in the final scene. When Hamlet finally kills Claudius, after prancing about with Laertes in their respective chest wigs, he does it as if cut from the same cloth as "Flash Gordon." Throwing his rapier from the balcony like a javelin, Hamlet pins Claudius to his throne (note: poetic justice) and swings down on the chandelier in order to splash drops of poison into his mouth, all the while bellowing about his impending death, the stellar revenge he has enacted, and his chest...