I’ve only ever caused mayhem and then let the cops chase me around in Grand Theft Auto… and I’ve never played Grand Theft Auto Online. World of Warcraft yes, GTAO no. So the idea of Grand Theft Harmlet interested me but I didn’t jump on it… until now. And I’m afraid I’m not as enamored as everyone else who’s seen it.

The film is about a couple of friends during lockdown who were screwing around in GTO Online and stumbled on the game’s version of the Hollywood Bowl. It got them thinking… why not re-enact Hamlet within the game? So they set up auditions in-game… which was challenging due to random murder sprees, as you might expect from an online game.

The idea of basically filming a machinima version of a Hamlet production using the game’s stock assets is amusing. Watching things crumble and crash because it’s a game not designed for Shakespeare (though with similar death counts) is amusing. There’s a lot to smile and chuckle about, for sure.

But also maybe not for ninety minutes. About half-way through the film, it started to drag and get repetitive. They throw in some real life events (as told in the game) which are interesting, I suppose. But they show maybe ten minutes of the actual play performance. I assume the full thing is online somewhere.

I also wanted to know “and then what?”. So they put on the play but how many viewers did they get? And did Rockstar have anything to say about it? Did they ok the release of this movie? They show the cast receiving some kind of award at the end… what was that? The movie doesn’t tell us nearly enough.

So, yeah, it’s an amusing watch with some down-time and a severe lack of details. Probably worth watching if you are a fan of online gaming in general and Grand Theft Auto in particular. Not sure it would encourage others to sign up for MUBI (just schmucks like me).

Score: 77