Co-writers Ian McKellen and Richard Loncraine (who also directs) set their Richard III in 1930s Britain, and make the infamous hunchback a fascist warmonger plotting to usurp the throne. Today's English monarchy is, at best, nominal, but even way back in the 1930s there wasn't much to be gained by usurping it. Then again, the film takes place in an alternate reality where the War of the Roses occurs 450 years after the true historical conflict did. I don’t mind so much that royalty has endured those four centuries and a half; what does bother me is that language has not evolved in the interim at the same rate as, say, warfare. Why on Earth would Richard (McKellen), who is neither dumb nor crazy, use the expression “my kingdom for a horse” when he could be asking for a tank instead? This line is only in the movie because it’s in the play – but then, a great many things that are in the play aren’t in the film, and viceversa, so why keep this particular bit? I mean, it couldn’t be because the audience is expecting it, even though it makes zero sense given the circumstances, could it? Did they think diehard Shakespeare fans would riot otherwise? Well, if there were such a thing as hardcore Shake-heads, I assure you they would have rioted long before this point. Similarly outdated is a scene in which several characters who have been at each other’s throats are compelled to swear…

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