A Movie Shot Entirely Within GTA Online Has A 94% On Rotten Tomatoes
Grand Theft Hamlet is a documentary-style film about putting on Hamlet in GTA Online during the pandemic. It appears to have caught the attention of critics.
Grand Theft Hamlet is a movie shot entirely within GTA Online. The concept is a comedic documentary style film about two actors putting on Hamlet in GTA during the pandemic, while real-life theaters have all closed. This sounds like the kind of thing you would have found on YouTube, but it will be streaming on MUBI, a British streaming platform. This all probably sounds ridiculous, even to video game fans, but currently on Rotten Tomatoes, the movie has a 94% positive rating.
A movie shot entirely within GTA Online is actually getting great reviews
GTA Online is the always online version of Grand Theft Auto 5 where friends can play together or get interrupted by random players. The Grand Theft Auto series is already known for its violence, crime, and destruction, but you can imagine how having more players, and even anonymous ones at that, can scale that up to the next level.
The film, Grand Theft Hamlet, stars two actors who are out of work due to the pandemic. Desperate to find something to do, they decide to put on the first ever Shakespeare play in GTA Online. They put out a casting call, a video where they announce their idea mid-shoot-out with the cops. The movie follows the process of planning, casting, and eventually performing Hamlet. Not all players are immediately convinced, which ends up with plenty of explosions and in-game deaths. But based on the trailer, there is a heartwarming side to this too. A group of eclectic characters find each other in this online video game and put together a show.
After watching the trailer, I was immediately sold. The more I look into it, the more I’m convinced that this is something special. The movie has won several awards for Best Documentary at film festivals like South By SouthWest and the Catalonian International Film Festival. One critic review said “if there is one disappointing element of this moving, amusing, sad and memorable film it’s that it isn’t five hours long.”
As someone who grew up watching Rooster Teeth and Red vs Blue, a comedy series shot entirely within the Halo games, I still never thought something like this could be released in movie theaters. The film had a limited theatrical release in the UK and then last month in the US but is finally coming to streaming this Friday if you’re interested in seeing this for yourself.
