`Othello' has pulse but lacks poetry

OTHELLO

Directed and adapted by: Oliver Parker (play: William

Shakespeare)

Starring: Laurence Fishburne, Kenneth Branagh, Irene

Jacob, Nathaniel Parker, Michael Maloney, Anna Patrick

Playing at: Nickelodeon, Kendall Square

Rated: R (some sexuality)

Although Kenneth Branagh plays Iago to Laurence Fishburne's "Othello," this newest filmed Shakespeare is much closer to Mel Gibson's "Hamlet" than to Branagh's "Henry V" or "Much Ado About Nothing." It's straightforward and sturdy and energized -- a strongly contoured…