Hamlet vs. Hamlet

I recently viewed both the Kenneth Branagh and David Tenant Film adaptations will a group from class. Both films were exceptionally good .... and extremely different.  The David Tenant version is set in modern times but has a distinct old world feel. They wore modern clothes but kept the original language. This was a little distracting at first but by the end of the movie I was comfortable with it. Some interesting things they did was using security cameras and having the same actor play Claudius and Hamlets father. The Security Camera's were used to spy on hamlet and open/shift scenes. I felt like the cameras made the film choppy at some points however It gave an interesting spin on Hamlets choice to play crazy. At one point Hamlet breaks the camera in the main hall to and says "now I can truly be alone". He then goes into his soliloquy but he still acts crazy even though he's completely alone. This gave me the impression that Hamlet had really lost his mind by the time he kills Polonius. When he returns from England he seems to be of sound mind even during the ophelia burial scene.
I thought this was a good interpretation of Hamlets character. I loved Hamlets character in the film but I felt some of the other character were lacking in the acting, or at the very least, Shakespearian department. Ophelia bugged me and though she played a good crazy person I felt her role/character was made to modern and independent. The point of Ophelia's character is she's dependent of men and having people make decisions for her. For example, she was almost sarcastic in the scenes with her father which I thought distracted from the themes of the play. 

The Kenneth Branagh version was a more traditional Shakespeare interpretation. I wasn't quite sure if it was sett in a Elizabethan time period but it was in the past. One interesting thing they did in this version was create back story. Though the script was true to the play, several times throughout the movie there would be blips voiced over with the lines from the play but showing interpretations of past implication found in the lines. Such as Gertrude flirting with Claudius while the kings still alive. Sometimes I enjoyed the clarifications of the flash backs but sometimes I disagreed with the films interpretations. All in all I loved the film but I didn't think it was Kenneth Branagh's best role. I much preferred David Tenants Interpretation of the character. His character was allusive like Hamlet is supposed to be but he added a more dimensional personality to it. Also David's portrayal of madness was much more convincing then Kenneth's. I felt Kenneth was over the top at some parts and While Hamlet is supposed to be off the wall and inconsistent It was too much for me. As for the rest of the film I much preferred the Kenneth Branagh version because it was creative but true to the atmosphere of Shakespeare.