Director Michael Almereyda is no stranger to modernizing Shakespeare; his best-known film is probably his 2000 version of Hamlet that featured Ethan Hawke as a film school slacker version of the prince stalking the NYC boardrooms of the Denmark Corporation. Hamlet successfully streamlined the action of the play while maintaining the emotional resonance, the task Almereyda attempts again with his new Shakespearean adaptation, Anarchy. But Hamlet benefited from most audiences having at least a working knowledge of the play, whereas Anarchy is adapted from the play Cymbeline, one of Shakespeare’s lesser-known plays, meaning audiences will have to decipher the complicated plot all on their own.

And it is complicated – drawing on some of Shakespeare’s most famous creaky plot twists such as cross-dressing, a potion that feigns death, and even a misidentified headless corpse. The light strokes are this – Imogen (Dakota Johnson) loves Posthumus (Penn Badgley), but they keep it secret from her disapproving father, Cymbeline (Ed Harris), who in the play is the King of the Britons and here is a drug-running chief of a biker gang. Meanwhile, Cymbeline’s new queen (Milla Jovovich) and her rash son (Anton Yelchin) encourage him to stop paying tribute to the higher authorities (Rome in Shakespeare, here a hazily-defined police force), a move which would mean war.

I doubt anyone who sees only the film could completely recreate the plot, but that doesn’t matter that much – Almereyda concocts an atmosphere of heightened emotion combined with vivid imagery that makes for a fun viewing experience, even if the finer details of the plot just wash over you. While the translated setting doesn’t feel quite as apt or contemporary as Hamlet, it eventually makes associative if not logical sense – we’re on the margins of an empire in decline, where the state still holds ultimate authority, but that power is on the wane and cracks are beginning to show. It’s hard to put a finger on why certain locations were chosen, but they have a sort of dream-logic appropriateness, from the grand, yet decrepit colonial mansion where Cymbeline and his family reside, to the skuzzy Chinese restaurant where Imogen puts on her male disguise. Also contributing to the surreal atmosphere are fire visuals and a smoky performance of Bob Dylan’s “Dark Eyes” from Jovovich.

Anarchy is a highly imperfect film, from the source play’s confusing plot to some questionable inclusions of modern technology. But it’s also creative, atmospheric, and has a completely game and talented cast. Don’t go see Anarchy expecting it to make perfect sense, but if a dreamlike combination of Uzi-toting bikers and iambic pentameter sounds intriguing, this is the film for you.