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Regarding this movie, Roger Ebert, from the Chicago Sun-Times, said that "at the end of this ``Hamlet,'' I felt at last as if I was getting a handle on the play". He accredits this to Branagh's skill in enriching the roles of characters beyond Hamlet; his ability to stage familiar scenes in new ways, his portrayal of Hamlet as an active participant in royal politics which makes "him less a subject for pity"; and his inclusion of scenes that are often left out in movie productions. One of the ways he enriches the roles of other characters is seen in his depiction of Claudius, played by Derek Jacobi. As Ebert notes, "in shorter versions, he is the scowling usurper who functions only as villain. Here, with lines and scenes restored, he seems more balanced and powerful". This rendition seems more like Shakespeare's productions would have been because the complexity of the characters is honored. Additionally, this version shows the importance of the play within the play that many other versions leave out. Here, "we listen to the actual lines of his play (which shorter versions often relegate to dumb-show at the back of the stage). We see how ingeniously and cleverly they tweak the conscience of the king, and we see Claudius' pained reactions". Branagh's gives credit to the intricacies of plot, like the play, the intricacies of character in his version of "Hamlet".

This bibliography briefly discusses each of Shakespeare's plays. In the section on Hamlet, the article questions his reasonability. They suggest that the play within a play used to prove Claudius sin and the ghost's honesty does not adequately answer prove either side. This is because, "enough evidence remains in the play to suggest that the Ghost may yet be a "devil" intent on "abusing" the melancholic Hamlet by exhorting him to the kind of vengeance that Elizabethan Christians believed to belong only to God or to his deputed magistrates". In regards to his rationality, they suggest that if he wanted to prove the ghost's character he would have done so upon greeting the ghost. Because he does not it is "one of many indications in the text that he fails to put to proper use what he elsewhere describes as "godlike reason." A close examination of many of Hamlet's reflective speeches, including his celebrated. Additionally, in his famous speech "to be or not to be" shows us his irrationality and emotional trauma. With such a mentality, his actions could-and do-bring about tragedy that could have been avoided. As the article notes, "there is no doubt that Hamlet uncovers and 'sets right' much that is 'rotten in the state of Denmark'. The only question is whether the play invites us to consider a set of 'might have beens' that would have permitted us to approve of the protagonist even more unreservedly than we do".

This article discusses the idea of an elective monarchy in Denmark, which obviously impacts the play's overall power struggle, in terms of how the monarchy was established in each of the play's sources.