This movie does a better than average job of turning a Shakespeare play into a movie, but it doesn't succeed well as a movie. I thought the stage props, although minimalist, worked. The camera work was fine. With the exception of Heston, who seemed to be spend the first third of the movie smiling at some joke that rest of the cast weren't in on, I thought the acting was good. The characters were believable and their previous work on British TV served them well. The script was faithful to the play - actually too faithful - and this is why this was a so-so movie. Shakespeare was first and foremost an entertainer. He didn't write to please scholars, he wrote to amuse and tell a story to the masses. To do this he tried to use action sequences and clever plot devices, but most of all he tried to be a clever wordsmith. The problem with those that stay too faithful to the play is today's audiences don't speak as Elizabethans and the power of the words are lost. If Shakespeare was alive today he would update his script to reflect current English. This movie could easily have been edited down by 45 minutes and gained much by the editing. If Cleopatra makes hungry where she most satisfies, this film satisfies if we had been left hungry for more.
Review of Antony and Cleopatra
