The Kenneth Branagh incarnation (blond like Olivier's). The prime selling point for this vulgarly overscaled remake of Shakespeare's revenge tragedy is that it presents for the first time on screen, at a length of four full hours, the uncondensed text, for which Branagh demonstrates his reverence by pouring buckets of mood-controlling music over it at drowning-out levels of volume, and by turning big chunks of the dialogue into narration through the "cinematic" device of cutting away to activities performed elsewhere or earlier (including a previously undisclosed nude lovemaking bout between Hamlet and his fair Ophelia -- what a scoop!). The main outcome, meantime, of this textual completeness is the powerful case it makes for the wisdom of judicious editing. With Kate Winslet, Julie Christie, Derek Jacobi, Richard Briers, Nicholas Farrell, Michael Maloney, Rufus Sewell, Jack Lemmon, Charlton Heston, Gerard Depardieu, Billy Crystal, Robin Williams, Richard Attenborough, and (utterly speechless) John Gielgud. (1996) — Duncan Shepherd