Ian McKellan is one of the best movie villains ever as the scheming Richard III. If one keeps true to the Bard’s own dialogue, what’s left to creative interpretation is the setting and the acting. Both are handled with sinister appropriateness in this version, where the story unfolds in the upper echelons of a nazi-like Britain in a hypothetical 1940s. This is also a great movie to give your home theater a workout.
Richard III
****published September 4, 2000