Hamlet

This version of Hamlet is raw in its emotion, incredibly natural in its performances, and heartbreaking in its conclusion. Even after centuries of retellings, the story still cuts deep, and Aneil Karia’s version proves that its power has not diminished. At the center of it all is Riz Ahmed, whose incredibly raw performance ensures this adaptation will be remembered.

The song remains the same, but it’s all in the way you play it. Karia, Ahmed and Lesslie prove that "Hamlet" still hits after all these years.

A trade-off for this fleet-of-foot adaptation is the full range of the play’s philosophical soundings and emotional palette. But their “Hamlet” surges with its own energies — palpably a matter of life and death.

The director does an excellent job of nailing the small details required to translate Shakespeare’s verse into the realism of film.

Jittery, tense, fast-talking and always on edge, this is a Hamlet, above all, in a rush.

With director Aneil Karia’s interpretation, we get the great Riz Ahmed in the role, which is reason enough for the film to exist — but it’s perhaps the only one in a remake that might better have chosen not to be.

Cast adrift in this aimless movie, Ahmed seems lost. His performance is one in an unfortunate tradition of weepy Hamlets, and his problems are compounded by the fact that his weepiness is unconvincing. Each time he teared up while delivering a soliloquy, I felt that he was trying to sell me a used car.