Review

Shakespeare's tragedy "Titus Andronicus" is regarded as a minor work, more interested in grotesqueries than the bright writing of his later masterpieces. So director Taymor (best known for Broadway's "The Lion King") glosses over the weak material (despite an intense interpretation by Hopkins) and punches up these lowbrow elements, creating a sumptuously violent revenge fantasy. Unbound by convention in her film debut, Taymor lets loose a visual panoply of sets, settings and costumes that span the eras (from Elizabethan to modern), using tanks, the Popemobile, what-have-you to enhance the bloody melodrama. Lange's performance as ladder-climbing Goth Queen Tamora is especially pulpy, while Cumming camps it up as the spoilt king. It's certainly not Romeo and Juliet, but it may be the best possible (and, in spirit, most faithful) adaptation of this particular work.