The Tempest

The Tempest is not the most riveting drama, the larger realization is after all a certain weariness with it. This is given to us as a magician who halfway through the story abandons his powers of illusion, who after conjuring to him the characters and plotting the story of revenge pauses to reflect on the emptiness of the endeavor. It's still powerful then, because we are all Prosperos alone in our island with the thoughts we conjure up to inhabit. In Shakespeare's time, the inspiration for Prospero must have likely come from the scandalous topic of John Dee, the communion with spirits and visions through crystals certainly point at that as well as more broadly the notion of a benign magic. Magic since well before Dee and up to Crowley has tried its best to mask in so much hoopla what other spiritual traditions make clear from the start: that man is an embodied consciousness with the ability to direct that consciousness to vision. Shakespeare no doubt understood this was exactly his own art, a rich and complicated magic of conjured vision in peoples' minds. So if this is to be powerful, you have to adopt a very intricate stance. Show both the power of illusion as vision and, contradictory, the emptiness of it, the fact it is underpinned by an illusory nature of reality. Greenaway masterfully did this in his Prospero film by having Prospero's creation of the play as vision, the vision lush and wonderful, and yet at every turn shown to exist on a stage. Taymor is too earnest to strike this stance, in fact judging by the cinematic fabrics here she seems unsure of what direction to follow. She is an earthy woman so intuitively builds on landscape, volcanic rock under our feet. Pasolini could soar in this approach judging from his mythic films, her approach is too usual and without awe. The magic is also too ordinary. A few movie effects cobbled together in earnest as something to woo simple souls like Trinculo. Compared to the novel richness of Greenaway this feels like discarded Harry Potter work. And the cinematic navigation is without any adventure, as if Taymor didn't believe there was anything for her to discover outside the play, to conjure up in the landscape itself by wandering to it, so she never strays in visual reflection. Mirren conveys the reflection as best she can, but that is all here, too little.

I didn't knew the script nor the works of Shakespeare, nor should I need to know them to review and like a movie. Being that this one comes from Shakespeare, it's understandable to have similarities with the original work but the language used here is way over the top for me. Reading a novel or watching a live play is one thing, watching a movie is another thing all by itself. Director didn't care for us viewers as long as it can throw at us as many lines as possible that resemble the original play, problem is that they came out totally wrong, out of place, not believable and with awful acting, except for Helen Mirren who totally rocks and tried her best with the tools given to her, the rest of the cast sucks, CG is nice but the movie as a whole came out like being a tapestry of different ideas put out wrong. This is not a movie, this is a play pretending to be a movie and that sucks to be honest. The worst parts of this little fiasco are Ariel, making incredible moves to try to hide his *, which for me is awful, since I prefer to see a * in an honest acting than trying myself to justify a good "moral" scene, totally unnecessary. The other aspect of the movie that is totally without justification is the music and sound, since when rock and fantasy genres blend?... Bad sound editing and I mean really bad, some dialogs are really low, some FX are really high and they are not balanced. Do not waste your time, if you want to know more about this story it is better to go see it in an actual play than try to watch is painful and extremely boring pretense of a movie.

The Tempest is a wonderful but complicated play, and while I can understand the reactions of those who disliked it, I thoroughly enjoyed this one who I saw for the treasure that is Helen Mirren. It is not perfect, there are times where the delivery was a little too garbled or fast and Russell Brand gives a performance so lacking in subtlety that he did seem out of place to me. However, Helen Mirren is as ever magnificent as Prospera, with a commanding presence, intense delivery and sense of character and an urging sense of bitterness. Felicity Jones is an excellent Miranda, David Strathairn's Alonso is magnetic and Dijimon Hounsou is a Caliban that is both terrifying and sympathetic. Alfred Molina and Chris Cooper prove themselves to be scene-stealers, Ben Whishaw is an effective Ariel who as a spirit looks wonderful and Alan Cumming plays it straight and is good at it no matter how strange it initially is. Julie Taymor's direction is compelling and creative, especially in the character relationships, you feel the spiritual connection between Ariel and Prospera, the sadness of Caliban and Prospera's sorrowful weariness at the end and the idea to have Caliban as Prospera's shadow self was convincing. The visuals are spectacular, right from the palaces, towers, columns and the scenery itself helped by well-above average effects and sweeping cinematography. The dialogue is as poetic and witty as ever, and while some may find the rock music jarring, while it is not my kind of music, it did give some energetic flavour to the songs. All in all, not a movie that everybody is going to like, but while not perfect I thoroughly enjoyed it. 8/10 Bethany Cox

In Julie Taymor's latest endeavor characters fly around supernaturally, balance on dangerously high precipices, and sing and jive to vaguely rock underscoring. Is this "Spiderman: Turn Off The Dark"? Nope - "The Tempest", Taymor's film adaptation and direction of Shakespeare's version of "Survivor: Prospero's Island". Except here Taymor's main gimmick isn't bringing cartoon characters to life (as she did so memorably in "The Lion King" on stage) - it is casting Helen Mirren as Prospero (here re-named Prospera). Pronouns are altered in Taymor's self-adapted screenplay: father become mother, sir becomes madam; but oddly master avoids becoming mistress and duke isn't swapped with duchess. Taymor parcels out the use of CGI special effects, mostly reserving their impact for Ben Wishaw's flighty and always naked Ariel. Locations are lovely and rugged at once - evoking a sort of sci-fi landscape where magic can happen. But the film's slavish linguistic adaptation (save pronouns) is also its undoing. In Shakespeare's Old Globe words painted the picture - no scenery, no costuming and few embellishments. In a film, these are in abundance, often making Shakespeare's non-stop verbalizing redundant and after a while - numbing. There are terrific performances here, but they'd be much more magical on stage. That is, provided the actors' health insurance is paid up.

Just a small point,I found the following on Wikipedia. "The Tempest premiered at the Venice Film Festival on September 11, 2010 as the festival's closing film. When Disney sold Miramax Films to Filmyard Holdings,LLC , they took over distribution through its division Touchstone Pictures." add to this that the ONLY Official Website for The Tempest is for the DVD/Blu Ray then I think that says it all? When Touchstone got the movie they obviously decided they didn't like it,and decided to only release it on DVD/Blu Ray? I cannot find anywhere (here in the UK) that it has been released for more than a few days. Very disappointing.

Julie Taymor (Frida, Titus) sets her sights on the Bard's final masterpiece, recasting Prospero as Prospera (Hellen Mirren) and letting the magic and romance loose in this very different take on The Tempest. First, what works? Hellen Mirren does, rather unsurprisingly, and the art direction of photography are consistent with the vision of the woman who gave us Titus back in 1999. Kudos as well to the ever-watchable David Strathairn and Djimon Hounsou. What annoys? Now we enter very subjective ground. This beautiful, deceptively simple play is turned into an amped up to the max, loud and frantic film. The electric guitar whines are painfully out of place, and Russell Brand, never guilty of subtlety on a good day, will make you claw your own eardrums out. It's almost as if Taymor had forgotten we were right there with her cast, right behind the camera, instead of sitting 50ft back in a packed theater. This has proved an incredibly divisive film, and I feel split right down the middle on it. I admire Titus, in my mind one of the best Shakespeare adaptations in history, but whereas Taymor's turbocharged visuals and loud, often trashy use of sound and effects served as a perfect illustration for Shakesepare's bonkers gore-fest, it diminishes the more mature, heartfelt qualities of this play. The Tempest is a great playwright's swan song, the work of an aging, mature artist. Why would you give us an overly loud, ADD-afflicted MTV version? Ultimately, this frustrating missed opportunity makes you wonder, did Taymor have her Shakespeare mixed up all along. Rather than give us "the stuff that dreams are made of", she serves us "a tale, told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing".

source: The Tempest

I had no choice but to watch this for a class at my college; I watched it on my own time and was supposed to write a review comparing it to the text.For being released in 2010, the CGI was just awful. It makes 70's effects look excellent. And their were so many anachronisms, and poor emotionless forced acting, Just an overall piece of rubbish. Spare yourself. This was the worst adaptation of a Shakespeare I have ever had the displeasure of watching. I found it more hilarious, more out of how soaked in cheese it was than any actual humor. It's racist on a level I cannot believe was carried over to the 21st century. Awful, awful movie. I cannot stress that enough.

A few years after my original review, I have re-watched some of this film and have tried to be kinder. This is my amended version. I am sorry to still have to be so negative and I'm sure others have enjoyed it, but I can only say what I think. Whenever I write a review, I always think hard about how to start. But in this case, it is easy. This could have been fairly good, but sadly it is a truly dreadful film. The difference between a good film and a bad film can be a few small things and usually they are the things that destroy the magic. The Tempest of course is all about magic but the film destroys it. Totally. I'm sure the idea was saleable, particularly with the then celebrity Russell Brand in a lead role, but things must have started to go downhill from then on. There must have been times when they wanted to cut their losses and abandon it, but they pressed on hoping the SPFX would rescue it - instead it just made it worse. Julie Traymor's direction leaves a lot to be desired - she seems to be constantly struggling to hold things together. The use of a female lead is baffling although the actor, Helen Mirren, who normally plays the Queen of England, does a good job and manages to hold the whole tottering mess in some sort of shape. Tom Conti, a fine actor, manages to get through the laughable screenplay with his dignity intact, as does Alan Cumming. Dijimon Hounsou however is the worst Caliban I have even seen, and I have seen quite a few - again a good concept that didn't work. Alfred Molina, again a fine if limited range actor manages to keep his head down and put in a passable performance. Russell Brand is unspeakably awful as Trinculo - an idiot over-acting if ever their was. Again, good concept but didn't work. Stuart Dryberg's cinematography is patchy. The early exterior shots are useful for a "how not to" at a film school truly some of the worst exterior lighting since Dad's Army. Look at the credits and you'll find a huge crew who managed under Taymore's direction to product a piece of rubbish - why didn't someone speak up for goodness sake? But perhaps they knew but with all that money at stake, just couldn't abandon things. A new director for sure, a lot of re-shoots, a new Trinculo perhaps could have rescued it. But perhaps not. I have worked on amateur productions of this fine play which have been infinitely superior to this awful film and I would not insult amateurs by describing this as amateur - it is nowhere near that quality.

I didn't knew the script nor the works of Shakespeare, nor should I need to know them to review and like a movie. Being that this one comes from Shakespeare, it's understandable to have similarities with the original work but the language used here is way over the top for me. Reading a novel or watching a live play is one thing, watching a movie is another thing all by itself. Director didn't care for us viewers as long as it can throw at us as many lines as possible that resemble the original play, problem is that they came out totally wrong, out of place, not believable and with awful acting, except for Helen Mirren who totally rocks and tried her best with the tools given to her, the rest of the cast sucks, CG is nice but the movie as a whole came out like being a tapestry of different ideas put out wrong. This is not a movie, this is a play pretending to be a movie and that sucks to be honest. The worst parts of this little fiasco are Ariel, making incredible moves to try to hide his *, which for me is awful, since I prefer to see a * in an honest acting than trying myself to justify a good "moral" scene, totally unnecessary. The other aspect of the movie that is totally without justification is the music and sound, since when rock and fantasy genres blend?... Bad sound editing and I mean really bad, some dialogs are really low, some FX are really high and they are not balanced. Do not waste your time, if you want to know more about this story it is better to go see it in an actual play than try to watch is painful and extremely boring pretense of a movie.