Titus (movie)

Sumptuously and elaborately staged, steeped in powerful symbolism and bordering on absolute brilliance, Julie Taymor’s “Titus” flirts with becoming among the all-time best of Shakespeare movies – if you can endure the stomach-turning violence and scary tree-branch hands. The film stars Anthony Hopkins in the title role of a loyal Roman general returning from a victorious campaign against the Goths. It has cost him a dreadful personal price: 21 of his 24 sons were killed in battle. He brings with him their bodies and five prisoners – Tamora (Jessica Lange), the queen of the Goths, her sons (Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Raz Degan and Matthew Rhys), and Aaron (Harry Lennix), a Moor with an evil streak as deep as the ocean – and hands them over to the newly ensconced Emperor (a Hitler-esque Alan Cumming, in one of his most fabulous performances).