This film adaptation of a critically acclaimed stage production of Shakespeare's historical drama stars Ian McKellen in the title role. The setting is a comic-book vision of 1930s London: part art deco, part Third Reich, part industrial-age rust and rot. The play's force is turned into a synthetic high by art directors and storyboard sketchers, all of whom have a field day condensing the material into disposable pop imagery. Richard III is a fun film, more than anything, so infatuated with its own monstrous stitchery that even the most awkward casting (Annette Bening... and Robert Downey Jr) seems a part of the ridiculous design. McKellen is the best thing about the movie, his mesmerising portrayal of freakish despotism and poisoned desire a thing to behold. --Tom Keogh [show more]
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Ian McKellen stars in the title role of this adaptation of Shakespeare's play, based in an alternative, fascist England. After a bloody civil war in 1930s England, between the House of Lancaster and the House of York, Richard, Duke of Gloucester, lays his claim to the English throne amid the turmoil. The deformed monarch-apparent uses all of his sinister guile to plot and murder his way to power, each bloody action taking its toll on his family and friends until he has to stand and fight one last battle. The cast also includes Annette Bening, Jim Broadbent, Robert Downey Jr, Maggie Smith and Kristin Scott Thomas.
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