That being said, I am admittedly the first to appreciate Taymor's spectacular aesthetics. In the film's best setpiece Ariel (Ben Whishaw) is a black-winged satan (i.e., adversary) who drives the King of Naples (David Straithairn), Antonio (Chris Cooper) and Sebastian (Alan Cumming) mad with confusion and fear.
The face of Ariel is refracted onto surfaces: the trunks of trees, the faces of frogs, underneath flowing water, on windgusts. In a separate sequence Stephano (Alfred Molina), Trinculo (Russell Brand) and Caliban (Djimon Hounsou) are chased across the island by hellhounds whose pelts burn like gleaming coals. In an effective gendered reversal, protagonist Prospera (Helen Mirren) uses her magic staff to raise the film's shipwrecking tempest and to conjure an intricate vision of the mathematical geometry of the heavens rendered as a kaleidoscopic cosmic compass and orchestrated by the music of the spheres. Mirren's anchoring performance is leant support by Tom Conti as the good-hearted Gonzalo, and Alan Cumming as the effete, impressionable Sebastian, both of whose command of Shakespearean verse was welcome and orienting; they were able to mean their words, which is--of course--the great challenge actors face in enacting Shakespearean language. Not all of Taymor's ensemble succeeds.
At MUBI, David Hudson has rounded up reviews from the film's premiere in Venice and its centerpiece presentation at the New York Film Festival, including a Twitch dispatch from teammate Peter Gutierrez.
Cross-published on The Evening Class.
Just caught this this week, but am more or less embargoed from posting my review until Next Week (It opens Toronto next Thursday)...I was not overwhelmed by the film, but thought the slapstick humour and bawdy rendition of lines from Alfred Molina to be the most watchable aspect of THE TEMPEST....Maybe Taymor should go for a more comedic one of Shakespeare's plays in the future, and leave the heavier, more meta-type stuff alone. It's wacky that she drowns out all the actors dialogue completely in the opening ship-wreck...really what is the point of having the actors bother with lines if you are going to crush the audio with soundtrack and foley.