Rosencrantz and Guildensterm, minor characters from the play 'Hamlet', find themselves on the road to Elsinore Castle at the behest of the King of Denmark. The duo encounter a band of players before arriving to find that they are needed to try to discern what troubles the prince Hamlet. Meanwhile, they ponder the meaning of their existence.
Both Oldman and Roth turn in flat and uninspiring performances.
– Geoff Andrew,
Time Out,
9 Feb 2006
rotten:
As happens at the opera, one usually laughs (if one laughs at all) not because something is funny, but because one has successfully recognized that it is supposed to be funny.
– Vincent Canby,
New York Times,
20 May 2003
rotten:
As a movie, this material, freely adapted by Stoppard, is boring and endless. It lies flat on the screen, hardly stirring.
– Roger Ebert,
Chicago Sun-Times,
1 Jan 2000
rotten:
Staged as they are here, the jokes and the fourth-wall gamesmanship don't seem as funny as they did on the page.