Cymbeline

"On her left breast, a mole cinque-spotted, like the crimson drops I' the bottom of a cowslip."

It's been over 14 years since Director Michael Almereyda and Ethan Hawke collaborated together in the modern day adaptation of William Shakespeare's classical play, Hamlet. The film was warmly received by critics despite not being the first time that a Shakespeare play was adapted to modern times without changing the original dialogue (Baz Luhrmann did the same with Romeo + Juliet in 1996). Once again Almereyda decides to leave the dialogue untouched and change the setting to modern times for the adaptation of Cymbeline. The King (Ed Harris) of a biker gangster group known as Britain is upset that his daughter, Imogen (Dakota Johnson) has fallen in love with his protégé, Posthumous (Penn Badgley), who she secretly married. The two have sworn eternal love to each other, but the King's second wife, the Queen (Milla Jovovich), has other plans for Imogen. She wants her to marry his son, Cloten (Anton Yeltsin) so they banish Posthumous from their group. Meanwhile the bikers have decided to stop paying tribute to the Roman Police Department and a war is about to breakout between the two groups. Posthumous has fled to his friend's house where he ends up meeting Iachimo (Ethan Hawke) and tells him all about his lover's chastity. Iachimo makes a bet with him claiming that he can seduce her and prove that she's not as pure as he believes her to be. He meets Imogen and is unsuccessful in his approach, but Iachimo fools Posthumous into thinking he did sleep with his lover and that is where the plot begins to take several unexpected twists.

If the short synopsis of this film felt a bit convoluted, it's because the film actually has a lot going on in the opening minutes where it's trying to introduce the main characters in a very rushed way. The dialogue doesn't help either if you're not familiar with Shakespeare's play because the delivery is extremely fast and new characters keep on coming from all over the place. It's strange that I'm complaining about how fast everything comes at you, because the pacing does get quite tedious and I was thankful the film only runs a bit past the 95 minute mark. But that doesn't mean that the adaptation isn't a mess because it's all over the place. One of the reasons why this adaptation didn't work for me is that the tragicomedy plays out as pure tragedy here and the comedy element is missing from the film. There was no time to get to know any of the characters or their true intentions and it seemed the entire purpose of this film was being able to adapt the play in a modern setting without touching the dialogue. Something that Whedon accomplished much better in Much Ado About Nothing because he focused on the comedy more than on the action. It's funny that I say this because I wasn't even a fan of Whedon's adaptation although I recognized its artistic value, but here there's nothing that worked for me.

Shakespeare's plays might be timeless, but that doesn't mean that all of them can be adapted to film. Cymbeline seems to be one of those plays that don't translate well to the big screen due to the convoluted plot. The performances in this film aren't bad, and I like most of the actors here, but the problem for me was that the adaptation didn't work at all. Not even John Leguizamo can redeem the film despite how well he's played Shakespearean characters in the past (Romeo + Juliet). Ed Harris and Ethan Hawke are both extremely talented actors, but there was nothing they could do to engage me with the film. I love Shakespeare's plays and despite never having read this one, I still could see some of his trademarks in the characters and writing, but unfortunately I didn't care for them in this adaptation.

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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 ...

Michael Almereyda once again stuffs a Shakespearean play into modern day society and comes up with an incomprehensible mess. His film of "Hamlet" at least used as its framework an enduring masterpiece with themes as relevant to today's world as when it was written. But "Cymbeline" is an obscure, rarely produced oddity from Shakespeare's canon which employs unlikely plotting centered on obsolete sexual morality which has no relevance to today's world. Why Almereyda thought this archaic chestnut needed to be set in the present day is baffling.

It is up to the actors to inject some life into this dull mess and for the most part, they are not up to the task. Dakota Johnson is stunning to look at as the ill-used Imogen, but gives a one-note performance that is insufferable to watch. Ethan Hawke brings to the evil Iachimo the same dull monotone that he employed as Almereyda's Hamlet. And Penn Badgley makes the gullible Posthumus seem like a refugee from a boy band. Only Delroy Lindo and Ed Harris project the charisma necessary to make their characters interesting, although demoting Harris' Cymbeline from the King of Britain in the original text to the head of a motorcycle gang is unimaginably reductive.

Almereyda seems to have a fetish for updating Shakespearean drama into the modern world and has no issue with pummeling it into a different shape to fit his concept no matter what the Bard's original intention was while writing it. The approach worked intermittently with "Hamlet" but fails completely with "Cymbeline." Almereyda would be well advised to seek out contemporary stories to make films of and leave Shakespeare alone.

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.

This movie is a big disappointment, not because it didn't meet my expectations, but because I couldn't even watch it.

Ed Harris is one of my favorite actors, and the description of the movie on the DVD box sounded pretty good. It didn't say though that "a modern retelling of Shakespeare's timeless tragedy" meant that the dialog would be Shakespeare's original Early Modern English used in a modern setting.

Of course not. Otherwise, who in their right mind would want to watch it? What were the people who made this movie thinking? I still respect the actors who appeared in this feature. I'll call it temporary insanity.

When I first heard the Early Modern English, I thought "this has got to be for effect at the start of the movie – surely it will switch over to regular dialog any moment." When it didn't, I jumped to the next chapter, and the next chapter, and the next chapter …

You have got to be kidding me! It seems many viewers feel the same based on the low user rating.

I'm so grateful that I didn't go to see this movie in a theater. If I had, I might have been compelled to stick it out. Come to think of it, it would have been the ultimate experience for a first date. You would probably get married and have something to laugh about for the rest of your lives together! I'm not going to rate or comment further on a movie I didn't watch. By the way, I almost never bail on a movie – about one in every 500 or so.

I could not endure to watch it. Maybe thou can.