Othello (The Tragedy of Othello: The Moor of Venice)

A highly engaging attempt at Shakespeare's most domestic tragedy.

Mr. Branagh's superb performance...guarantees this film an immediacy that any audience will understand.

Davies has done an admirable job of condensing the sprawling action.

Parker has shown how involving and moving Shakespeare can still be on the screen.

The movie is roughly on the same cinematic level as the Mel Gibson Hamlet, though it tends to get under your skin a little more once it gets rolling.

Passion, like outpourings of iambic pentameter, isn't part of this picture's equation.

Laurence Fishburne is an actor of no little talent, but he lacks Othello's martial bearing and heroic stature.

Branagh, as Iago, is so obviously the best thing in this largely uninteresting interpretation that you feel sorry for him when he inevitably bites the big one.

A decent but not great version that makes Shakespeare's reliable play accessible, but the acting is uneven: Branagh is witty as Iago, Fishburne looks but doesn't sound right, and Jacob is pale as Desdemona.

An entertaining, respectful adaptation that plays like an erotic thriller with Elizabethan language.

Fishburne gives an amazingly chilling turn; when his Othello receives the Bad News about his lady love, Fishburne positively radiates homicide.

Fine Shakespeare adaptation