Richard III

Writers, performers and directors have been “reworking” the words of William Shakespeare probably just a few years after they debuted on the stage, whether to make the stories more contemporary, more marketable or more easily digestible for a new generation. They rarely make them better, but in most instances one would suppose that isn’t the goal. Very likely it’s the artistic ambition to reinterpret what made the story so great in the first place…along with a personal desire to “pay it forward,” so to speak, to the man who inspired so many.

So seems to be the case with Ian McKellen’s take on Richard III, which, although it would be unfair to discount director Richard Loncraine’s visual contribution to the film, is the very definition of a tour de force performance by an actor who dredges up every last sociopathic tendency in one of the Bard’s most memorable characters.

Dear desperate high school students: this is a movie that wipes it bum with your Cliff’s Notes!

Set in an unspecified era that arms the players with WWI-style weaponry, the film opens with a tank smashing through a brick wall, introducing Richard behind a menacing gas mask as he executes his first victims in the name of war and politics. It’s a spectacular sequence that establishes just how malleable Shakespeare’s stories can be – and what an influence they continue to be in popular culture such as Game of Thrones. McKellen and Loncraine don’t change any of the original dialogue, a trick that could have very easily proven fatally ambitious. But those wary of muddling through old-English speeches need not be overly concerned, as each beat of the story is recapped wonderfully by the scheming Richard who makes sure even those groundlings in the cheap seats understand what’s going on.

It’s during these deliciously pithy soliloquies that McKellen really shines, all gnashing teeth and twirling mustache as he explains his Machiavellian plots with truly villainous glee. Yet he does so with such charm and grace, despite his hunchbacked frame, that one is compelled to hope his comeuppance is a long time coming. And although a cast of British regulars including Jim Broadbent and Maggie Smith assists him - along with big name American supporting players like Robert Downey Jr., whose death scene would be right at home in a slasher film - it’s McKellen who struts and frets with the most recklessly entertaining abandon.

Twilight Time’s 3000-copy limited edition Blu-ray makes a wonderful first impression for a film that barely played theatrically here in the U.S. The elaborate real-world location sets create a unique fantasy world rendered quite stunning in hi-def. Extras include an isolated effects track and original theatrical trailer.