PRINCE OF JUTLAND (1994)

Back in the early 1960's one of my favourite historical novelists, Henry Treece, wrote a wonderful novel called The Green Man which told the tale of Hamlet based on the old legend rather than the Shakespeare version. I always thought that would have made a good film so when I heard of the existence of this film which takes its plot from the Saxo Grammaticus version of the Hamlet story, I couldn't wait to see it. It receives several rave reviews on the IMDb but, sadly, it didn't work for me. Given that the film stars Christian Bale, Helen Mirren, Gabriel Byrne, Brian Cox and Tom Wilkinson, one would be forgiven if for doubting my judgement but for me the film fails on several levels. The acting is simply dull with the more than impressive line up of talent going through the motions with an obvious lack of enthusiasm.The direction by Gabriel Axel is poor and the dialogue banal in the extreme. Overall the film totally lacks the real passion that the story cries out for. Instead it gets all the conviction of an amatuer dramatics production. Dull, dull, dull. Rating *