Film versions of Hamlet are the new buses; you wait for ages for one, then three come along all at once: first Hamnet, then Riz Ahmed’s take on the Danish ditherer, and now this anime reinterpretation. But visually ravishing though it is, Scarlet is a hefty disappointment from director Mamoru Hosoda, a leading light from whom we expect more than an incoherent and overbearing fantasy.
Hosoda kicks things off with the exploitation version of the Dane: Claudius (voiced by David Kaye in the English version) and Gertrude (Michelle Wong) bragging about their intent to murder poor old King Amlet (Fred Tatasciore) and snatch the throne. His offspring Scarlet (Erin Yvette) is left, as in the play, to vacillate about payback – but Claudius gets there first by feeding her a vial of poison. She is given a reprieve though, when she wakes up in a wasteland purgatory populated by the usurper and his prowling knights. After being dispatched, these minions dissipate into the deeper “nothingness” that also awaits her if she doesn’t succeed in her quest for vengeance.
