The hyperactive New York City, buzzing with technological gadgets should have done for the Dane what Baz Luhrman's Los Angeles did for Romeo and Juliet. But where gun-toting Angelinos turned Olde English into street talk, these New Yorkers sound oddly out of place.

The story unfolds in 'Denmark Corp.', a multi-media company, the CEO and 'King' of which was poisoned by his brother, Claudius (a calculating Kyle Maclachlan). There are some stunning skyscraper shots of New York and some nice effects courtesy of footage filmed by young Hamlet (Ethan "Brooding" Hawke), a would-be film maker.

But the painfully slow pacing and the relentless images of Hawke staring at TV screens while his voiceover provides soliloquies deaden rather than enliven Shakespeare's words. The relentless barrage of logos and technology distract from the story. When Old Hamlet's ghost (a suitably stoic Sam Shepard) fades into the glowing neon of a Pepsi dispenser, it doesn't to illustrate how spiritual values wither in a world of materialism. It just makes you thirsty.

Hawke's grunge-hip Hamlet is lost amidst clutter and video screens vying for audience attention. Only Liev Schreiber's Laertes is a strong enough performance to stand out.

But the real tragedy is that we catch glimpses of how good it could have been. The "to be or not to be" speech is foreshadowed by a grainy image of a smirking Kurt Cobain-like Hawke - gun to his head - played back again and again on Hamlet's own edit desk. But the full speech, delivered while browsing in Blockbuster, is almost missed as all eyes are drawn over Hawke's shoulder to images from The Crow II playing out on screens behind him.

Almereyda should have used more of the tools used in Hamlet's films (in fact supplied by New York indie director Jem Cohen). Instead, we're left with a facsimile-thin copy of something that could have been great. And, by the end of the film, the bloody anti-climax leaves you as cold as the New York streets in winter.

Abi McLoughlin