The Tempest

You expect Nicolas Cage to pop up from behind a sand dune on a Harley brandishing a rocket launcher.

Taymor, by turning Prospero into a woman while retaining an "imperialist" view of Caliban, will no doubt simultaneously please and enrage left-wing critics. The rest of us can enjoy the movie's strengths...

Primarily an exercise in eccentric (and, I would argue, empty) spectacle.

Normally I'd watch Helen Mirren in anything, even if she was just putting out the laundry or reading the phone book. But, given the roteness of her line readings here, it might have been better if the phone book rather than Shakespeare was her text.

The costumes designed by Sandy Powell - leather gowns and military uniforms, Renaissance in silhouette and detailed with zippers - are the film's most arresting element.

Most plays-turned-movies try to open things up. Taymor still thinks like a theater director, ending up with a "Tempest" that takes place in a teapot.

Julie Taymor has a theatre director's idea of how movies work. That's not a compliment.

Dispensing with tableau compositions, this adaptation feels liberated from static theatrical and, to a lesser degree, cinematic convention by the overall openness of its staging and camerawork that's somewhere between handheld and Steadicam.

There are two reasons to watch The Tempest: if you're a fan of Shakespeare, or a fan of Helen Mirren.

Hundreds of years ago, Shakespeare would have never imagined this story could look like Taymor's vision.

Taymor tries a little too hard, neither breaking nor broken by the play, but ultimately losing the wrestling match. [Blu-ray]

Taymor excels at creating visuals that are so beautiful you want to hang every frame on your wall, but content-wise this film falls really flat.