Richard III (1995)
Directed by Richard Loncraine
Having helped his brother King Edward IV take the throne of England, the jealous hunchback Richard, Duke of Gloucester, plots to seize power for himself. Masterfully deceiving and plotting against nearly everyone in the royal court, including his eventual wife, Lady Anne, and his brother George, Duke of Clarence, Richard orchestrates a bloody rise to power before finding all his gains jeopardized by those he betrayed.
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What critics compared Richard III to
The grand star plays ''Al Pacino'' ? to be sure, a cockeyed version ? and when we first meet him, this Al is on stage in a production of Shakespeare's Richard III, mad as hell because the ringing of some idiot's mobile phone in the audience has distracted him.
A YouTube video of the man breaking character in a stage production of Richard III in order to castigate an audience member who didn’t silence his or her cell phone (shades of Daniel Craig and Hugh Jackman ?) is genuinely inspired, while other moments are more familiar I’m Still Here territory.
There are strong echoes of Richard III in Aguirre's power-mad quest, especially when he sets up the expedition's token royal (Berling) as Emperor of El Dorado.
Consider Richard Loncraine's "fascist" version of Richard III, for example or, more to the point, John Boorman's Excalibur, which took the same material that makes up King Arthur and reworked it in terms of Wagenerian opera.
"Jupiter Ascending" smashes together the narrative particles of everything from "Richard III" to "Soylent Green" with a cinematic style that could be called High Thor.
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I realize this isn’t supposed to be Richard III, but a little more effort to give the villain some menace and motivation would have helped.
With rivalries and jealousies brewing between both father and son and leader and lieutenant, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes is something of a modern-day Richard III.
Like some stars before him — Daniel Day-Lewis in “My Left Foot,” Ian McKellen in “Richard III” — he has created not the mere study of an infirmity but the drama of a man trapped inside one, fighting ferociously to emerge.
Lyne and cinematographer Peter Biziou ("The Truman Show," "Richard III") lay it on so thick that you can't help but imagine that they got a great deal on industrial grade trowels and then went to town slopping the imagery on one scene after the next.