 1009 - HAMLET
Genre: Euro-trashy Staging of Shakespearean Tragedy (1960,
B&W)
Don’s Synopsis:
Hamlet’s dad returns from the dead as a ghost and tells
his son to get a haircut... and that his Uncle,
the current King, killed him. This is a bit of a
dilemma for Hamlet given that his Uncle is now married to
his mom and is the source of his weekly allowance.
So instead of avenging his dad, Hamlet decides to just
wander around in the dark and talk to himself.
Eventually, Hamlet springs into revenge-getting action, but then it’s too
late and everyone dies.
Don’s Review:
In this experiment, M&tBs did something rather daring
– they took on William Shakespeare. True, this movie is a low-budget, poorly-lit, Euro-trashy version of the play from Germany
that’s dubbed into English (with Ricardo
Montalban as one of the voices!), but it really only comes off as an artsy Dieter-from-Sprockets version of the play, and the true nature of the Shakespearean tragedy still comes through rather
well. But I think this is Shakespeare’s most overrated play. I mean, the “To be or not to be” speech is good and all, but, besides that, I get frustrated watching this guy stand around, being indecisive and doing nothing
even though he knows, early in the play, the truth of his uncle’s treachery.
Hell, even his dad had to come back from the grave to tell him to rub out the evil uncle and he still
doesn’t take immediate action.
And, by the time Hamlet finally does take action – it’s too late so he dies, his mother dies, and his girlfriend goes mad and kills herself.
It’s really an infuriating play to watch – I much prefer Arnold
Schwarzenegger’s much
more decisive version of the character in
Last Action Hero (“To Be or Not to Be... Not to Be.” BOOM!!!), and still think
Macbeth is Shakespeare’s greatest work, not this overlong
and overrated play. This is definitely an unusual experiment – I think M&tBs
actually did as good as could be expected in attempting to riff this difficult-to-riff material.
But,
although I admire the effort they made, this really isn’t the type of
movie the show should be featuring, and it quite honestly may be
the single worst movie selected for riffing on the show
because the whole “synergy thing” needed between the movie
and the comments that elevates it into the entertaining
level that the show is know for simply isn’t there in this
case. Therefore, when compared to most other episodes on the laugh-o-meter, I have to give this experiment a
very low
rating, relatively speaking.
Don’s Rating: 
Forrest’s Synopsis:
Read the overrated play.
Forrest’s Review:
Hamlet is and always will be the worst MST3K episode of all time.
It is final. I popped in the DVD, watched for a few minutes, and gave up. Watching MTV is more fun, hell Pauly Shore could probably get more laughs than the MST episode of
Hamlet (and that is nearly impossible). It was an attempt the Brains should have never made.
The jokes in this episode are not bad at all, but the film is so dreary, so talky, so hard to follow, that the riffs fall flat, no matter how well Mike, Crow and Tom try.
Any given KTMA episode is a thousand times more enjoyable than
Hamlet, easily the worst episode of them all.
This episode deserves zero Crows.....but, it gets half a Crow because of
Mike’s hilarious take on Joe Don Baker in the first host segment (and
that’s being generous).
Season Ten has some great episodes, as did Season Nine, but both of them also had a terrible dud
(Hamlet and Quest of the Delta Knights). MST3K is supposed to be fun, but I felt like I was in geometry class while watching this episode.
Forrest’s Rating: 
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