Not outright terrible, just boring and cheap looking. I actually like Taymor's work (LOVE Across the Universe), but this one felt like it was trying to do some neat stuff but didn't have the budget or the heart to quite get there.

Despite the pretty amazing cast, the story feels like it goes nowhere and the effects are pretty awful. The insertion of the rock opera score doesn't help matters any.

To be fair (or unfair as the case may be) I actually didn't even finish the movie. I turned it off at about the halfway point.

Initially put off by the conceit of making Prospero into Prospera, I was glad to find out that it was a simple casting choice and nothing more was made of it. Mirren was, as ever, brilliant and made the best Prospero I've seen. Likewise, the rest of the cast is uniformly excellent and all but a few unknowns were respected and well-known actors. The direction lets the film down in certain places, as does the soundtrack, which may as well be bought from stock. Cheesy sequences set to generic rock produced annoyed groans. However, the effects are well realised, if not always well used, and when Taymor was good, she was great. Overall, an imperfect, but entertaining adaptation.

I watched The Tempest this evening as part of my college's pizza and film evening in which the pizzas never showed up, so right away I had a sour taste going in.

It didn't help that The Tempest is arguable Shakespeare's driest play, pretty much nothing happens. The effects were lame and downright laughable as well.

Worst of all was the soundtrack, it was cringe inducing filled with rock songs. It was like watching a very long and poorly made music video.

Throughout the movie I was bored. As the credits rolled I liked the whole better than the sum of the parts. Bummer it made half a million dollars on a $20 million budget. The Shakespearean language was probably too much for most people. It annoyed me as well. But that's Shakespeare.

http://margaretperry.org/on-this-unworthy-scaffold-experiencing-shakespeare-on-film/

Looks great but was lacking something.

Just watch the play.

Julie Taymor es una fascinante artista y he sido fan de sus peliculas pero aun asi debo decir que "The Tempest" es un desastre. Taymor esta tan fascinada con sus excesos visuales que se olvida de contar una historia que los justifique; hay ocasiones en que parece que quiere convertirse en un musical y olvidarse de lo demas. Y aunque "The Tempest" es una de las obras clasicas de William Shakespeare esta no se traduce bien al cine, no se si sea por lo denso de la prosa o por la mala adaptacion de Taymor (la cual decide elegir un reparto eclectico que parece que esta en diferentes peliculas; Rusell Brand, en especial, no puede salirse de su personaje de Aldous Snow en una muy mala eleccion de papel).
"The Tempest" es una obra pretensiosa de una artista acercandose al extremo del kitsch. Una verdadera lastima.

Pretty disappointing in terms of Shakespeare adaptions. While I liked the genderbend aspect of Prospero (here Prospera), it was a shame such an interesting take on the character had to be in such an awful movie.
Helen Mirren was possibly the only good thing about this movie, and even that claim is a stretch.
Overall: not worth the irritation to watch again.