Richard III (1995)
A film adaptation of the Shakespeare play of the same name, starring Ian McKellen (he also wrote the screenplay) alongside many other familiar and famous English actors of the 90s. Now, I'm not a big fan of Shakespeare, mostly because the Old English dialogue is hard to follow. I enjoy adaptations done right, but for me, Shakespeare adaptations should ditch the original dialogue... It's just too hard to follow. I really enjoyed Ran (80s Japanese Samurai adaptation of King Lear), enough to buy the bluray copy. I can't say the same for Richard III, not because it was bad... but because I guess the translation from Old English to Japanese made Ran significantly easier to follow.
This was an interesting take though. The setting was replaced against a backdrop of 1930s England, in an alternate history style setting where Fascism is taking over England rather than Germany. In the opening scene, we see gas-mask wearing jack-booted stormtroopers bursting into a military command room with a tank in front. From there we follow the regular plot of Richard III, but with Richard being sorta comparable to Hitler. He kills, claws, cheats, and lies his way to the crown... but as history and Shakespeare have taught us, that's not usually an enduring way to gain and hold power.
The sets are all very 1984 dystopian style. Lots of machinery/factory type buildings, very bland building designs in the city reminiscent of Soviet era architecture. Of course, Richard and his ilk are always enjoying ostentatious fetes and the like.
Overall it was a really enthralling film, but the requirement of having to think over each and every line of dialogue before I could even turn my attention to the visual aspects of the film was detracting for me.
7/10
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