Titus

...whether this makes for an eyeful or an eyesore depends on your tastes.

There's a jazzy wedding orgy, crypto-Nazi costuming and a scene staged in front of a vast modern structure made of arches...

Once again, Hopkins re-enforces the easily defended beliefs of many critics that he is one of the best actors of his generation. Plus, he can deliver Shakespeare's lines with a power and conviction that few others can match.

Taymor, who adapted Disney's LION KING for the Broadway stage, makes no effort to tone down the violence, instead transforming the play's most notorious scenes into imaginatively fiendish set-pieces.

...remains a sampling of stagy scenes barreling to a gruesome climax, parts greater than the sum of the whole. And this despite -- or maybe because of -- performances large enough to project in the Roman Colosseum.