A Will But No Way.

As J. C. Trewin declares in his marvelous Five & Eighty Hamlets, "Hamlet . . . is the world's most famous play. Certainly more has been written about it than [about] any other." It has also attracted more film adapters than any other play, among them Laurence Olivier, Tony Richardson, Grigori Kozint sev, and Kenneth Branagh. Master pieces resist transposition, so the efforts were inevitably failures, but grand enough to be the match of the average successful movie. Now, with his version, comes Michael Almereyda, best known for Nadja, a comic vampire film, and Trance, described as an "Irish druid witch mummy movie," the latter of which I managed to miss. I was not so lucky with Hamlet.

In his brand-new Shakespeare in the Movies, Douglas Brode writes, sight unseen, about the upcoming Almereyda Hamlet that "the Bard's words are retained" in this "updated version." Like conception-about which Hamlet opines that it is a blessing, but not as Ophelia might conceive- retention of dialogue is not a blessing as Almereyda conceives it in this "contemporary adaptation . . . set in New York City 2000-a world of laptops and limou sines." The enterprise proves a gross misconception or, more precisely, abortion.

Modern-dress Shakespeare can work on the stage because there, except for the costumes, no further modernity need obtrude. In the mesmerizingly real-seeming medium of cinema, however, ten sore thumbs would stick out less than Shakespeare's language surrounded by laptops and limousines, skyscrapers and neon lights. T. S. Eliot coined the memorable phrase "dissociation of sensibility" for 17th-century and later poetry where, "while the language became more refined, the feeling be came more crude."

How much cruder yet is Almereyda's preserving Shakespeare's language- albeit with cuts and additions, rearrangements, and sputtering repetitions-and then juxtaposing it with anachronistic situations, flashy business, crude images, and, in many cases, poor performances. Take just a simple example: the unobsolete line "How all occasions do inform against me," in which the superb choice of the multivalent inform can create an impact on stage, but not when lost in visual shuffle and delivered by Ethan Hawke. A perfectly adequate actor for contemporary purposes, he looks frightened, stupefied, at sea in a role requiring vocal command and expressive proficiency he lacks, and knows he lacks.

There is something ludicrous about a Hamlet who runs around in a peaked cap, watches James Dean on cassette, and has a picture of Che Guevara on his wall and a volume of Mayakovsky on his shelf. When he kills Polonius, he drags the corpse into the laundry room where, corralled by Claudius and his men, his terrified face is made ridiculous by the laundry seen whirling behind it. Den mark is now the Denmark Corporation, with Claudius its CEO. On its roof terrace, the final duel between Laertes and Hamlet takes place. The fighters start with foils, but continue with a handgun that just happens to be lying around. (There is also a well-stocked bar and a bunch of paparazzi covering the event.)

Ophelia fantasizes herself drowned in what I think is the Rockefeller Center fountain, and, for all I know, manages actually to drown there. Instead of flowers being scattered, it is Polaroids. Marcellus, officer of the guard, becomes blonde Marcella, Horatio's live-in girlfriend. "To be or not to be" is chopped up and comes with repetitions over a computer (or was it a television? My attention wandered), and ends with Hamlet walking through a video store. In the closing scene, TV announces the coming of Fortinbras, with MacNeil (sans Lehrer) reciting some lines of the Player King, leading up to "Our thoughts are ours, their ends none of our own." Oh, let Almereyda keep his ends as well.

I don't know how the film was shot, but judging by the cinematography, I'd say it was on the cheap. Carter Burwell's music is not an asset either, not even when it calls on Brahms and Tchaikov sky to help out. Others besides Hawke are outclassed by the language. Sam Shepard, looking sepulchral enough for the Ghost and then some, makes words sound like crumpled paper. As Horatio, Karl Geary, a veteran of Almereyda movies, would fade into the woodwork if there were any. Julia Stiles, a sweetly milkmaidish Ophelia, is undercut by the cuts in her part.

Liev Schreiber does decently by Laertes when not assigned preposterous tasks such as starting to throttle Claudius, indifferently played by Kyle MacLachlan. Except for misreading one line, Bill Murray is an effective Polonius, judiciously avoiding the unnecessary bumbling dear to hams in that role. Best of all is Diane Venora, who, to be sure, has played Gertrude on the stage as well; her work is tasteful and moving even during imposed bedroom antics, and raises the film's level whenever she appears.

Almereyda cannot begin to solve the thornier problems of transposition, such as what to do with the mission to Eng land (by commercial plane) and how England is to arrange Hamlet's execution. Amazingly, this Hamlet has managed to garner laudatory reviews; but, I suppose, getting the ones it deserved would have been even more amazing.

Worse yet is Kenneth Branagh's Love's Labour's Lost, as adapted into a musical with songs (most of them standards) by Gershwin, Porter, Berlin, and Kern, sung and danced by a cast of mostly nonsingers and nondancers. The play's minor characters, forming an important subplot, are barely more than walk-ons, with Holofernes, for instance, changed and trimmed into Holofernia, giving the distinguished Geraldine McEwan a part that could have been handled by a hologram. Only Nathan Lane, as Costard, gets half a chance for, as it were, a half-life.

The action is moved to 1939 in a kingdom of Navarre oblivious to the threats of war, including that between Shakespeare's language and the pop-song lyrics. The singing is amateurish and the choreography, scaled down to the skills of people who aren't dancers, rather lame.

The four main men give unremarkable performances, with Branagh looking too middle-aged for Berowne, and the Americans Matthew Lillard (Longaville) and Alessandro Nivola (the King) not even sounding right. As Dumaine, Adrian Lester copes better than the others, but he is black, which makes nonsense of being unrecognized in disguise, and of such a line as, addressed to him, "You may look pale."

The four main women come off no better: Alicia Silverstone as a baby- talking, clueless Princess; Emily Mort imer as a plain-Jane Katharine; Natascha McEl hone as a foursquare Rosaline-at least Carmen Ejogo, as Maria, looks nice and shows some spirit. But should the country wench Jaquenetta (the Italian actress Stefania Rocca) outshine them all?

The ridiculous Don Armado is crassly overdone by Timothy Spall; Richard Clifford does what he can with what is left of Boyet. Tim Harvey's production design smacks too much of the studio, with schematic costume design to match. Alex Thom son's cinematography, like Patrick Doyle's additional music, is serviceable. The real corker, though, is that the men, instead of being put on a year's probation by their ladies, join up to fight in World War II, with some stock war time footage reducing that historic calamity to the level of this histrionic fiasco.

It is not so much love's as Shakes peare's labour that is lost here, with Branagh's direction on a par with his adaptation. And to think that such eminent gents as Stanley Donen and Martin Scorsese are billed as presenters of this unpresentable concoction.