Cymbeline

Name: Cymbeline
Director: Michael Almereyda
Released: 2014

Synopsis

War erupts between dirty cops and outlaw bikers as a drug kingpin tries to protect his empire.

91
The A.V. Club
Almereyda tackles one of the Bard’s lesser-regarded later works, the plot-heavy tragicomedy Cymbeline, and again unearths untold depths.
90
Salon
If this willfully peculiar and daring Cymbeline isn’t to all tastes, it brings back the blood, the thrills and the sense of moral discovery to a long-neglected work.
70
Village Voice
This Cymbeline is brash and inventive and more than a little wild. Perhaps we've been wrong about this play all along.
60
Variety
Having learned a thing or two from Baz Luhrmann, Almereyda substitutes guns for daggers and picks his locations carefully, creating a rich, sultry-looking environment within which to stage the drama.
50
Slant Magazine
The source material, which is convoluted even by Shakespeare's narratively dexterous standards, is admittedly a tough nut for a filmmaker to crack.
50
The Dissolve
Almereyda’s sweeping cuts take material that was already problematic (though this technically isn’t one of Shakespeare's “problem plays”) and render it almost nonsensical.
40
The Hollywood Reporter
Almereyda puts together a slick-looking, well-paced package. But the central conceit simply doesn’t hang together well enough to create credible dramatic stakes, yielding an underpowered mashup of Sons of Anarchy with Game of Thrones.
40
The Telegraph
Almost nothing seems to click.