Julie Taymor has become best known for her own troubled role in the troubled but attention-getting Broadway spectacle, Spider Man: Turn Off the Dark. She has also been an occasional filmmaker. Her most recent effort in that line, The Tempest (2010), is out on Blu-ray.
As a cinematic adaptation of Shakespeare's intriguing, late play, The Tempest is interesting for its casting and its casting twist. The excellent Helen Mirren plays Prospero, the magician who colonized a remote island where a band of travelers seek refuge from the storm-tossed sea. The gender shift results in modifications to the story without diminishing its essence. Why not a woman with the power to raise the wind and still the water, to command spirits and enslave the sullen native, Calaban?
Mirren isn't the only prestige name in the credits. David Straitharn, Chris Cooper, Alan Cumming, Alfred Molina and Djimon Hounsou lend their talents to a production marred chiefly by cheesy, decidedly unmagical special effects. But with her inner reserve and steely determination, Mirren maintains a compelling presence as a seeker of hidden truths, the dreamer of dreams that can turn into nightmares.
