One of my all time favorites.

Absolutely Fantastic

If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

Geoffrey Wright's modern rendition of Shakespeare's Macbeth does little credit to the Jacobean genius. From start to finish the film distracts from the plot line, the language is confusing, and the screenplay is pointlessly violent. Sam Worthington plays the drug lord of Melbourne Macbeth and Victoria Hill plays his, perse, open minded wife, but it does seem that Miss Hill has an obsession with her anatomy that diverts our attention from the poor acting. Duncan (pre-death) is the drug lord slaughtered by Macbeth, sparking the non-stop bloodbath reminiscent of the SAW franchise. Macbeth then begins an unnecessarily brutal killing spree claiming friends, women and children alike. The film culminates to feeble shootout between Macduff's (Lachy Halme) henchmen and Macbeth's cronies. All thanks to Macbeth's psychotic need to kill women and children of course. Note the disturbingly perverse pleasure that the assassins take in their deaths. One appears to climax as he kills Mrs Macduff. Nice.The film, amazingly, is a total disaster, Shakespeares tragedy concerns love and ambition, and the characters are strangely moving. This rendition is moving-to the bathroom. Wright sees fit to play upon tiresome clichés such as; amorous school-girl-witches, who seduce men twice their age on foggy dance floors; angry gun toting Australians;and blood splattering at the screen at every second turn. If only it were in 3-D.Macbeth is instead shown with a 'Jack Sparrow' attitude-a swagger, and an affiliation for "rum and salty WITCHES" (At World's End). Only Macbeth isn't funny and yes, he solves problems by shooting them, he does so with none of the grace or finesse of our Captain. All Macbeth does that IS canon to an ambitious, violent, superstitious tyrant-king is that he IS violent. He makes up for the lack of the other attributes with that. Which isn't helped by the confusing and pointless Jacobean dialogue. Had Miss Hill decided against using "Ye Olde English" the film may have been a minor success, meriting perhaps and extra star or two.Alas, it was not to be, Hill clearly of the opinion that gun-toting, drugged up Aussies are of a cultured sort.Take the penultimate and final scenes for example, where that unconvincing showdown concerning Macbeth and Macduff begins. Note how its the only scene where the killings are sort of justified. Well the last of Macduff's is anyway. This would be fine, however the Miss Hill's final scene demanded once again she get her kit off-only this time shes dead in a bath of her own blood. One last pathetically (albeit not unexpected) pointless display of both Wright's and Hill's perversion to sexual violence. Even Cap'n Jack would be bored of her by now.In short, if sex, brutality, drugs and promiscuous teenage witches is your bag-go see it. If not-don't. Just don't bring the wife and kids!

Bored isn't what I was expecting to be while watching this film. I love Macbeth. I've both read the play and have been in a production of it. It's a beautiful play with some of Shakepeare's finest soliloquies. I can sit through a production of Macbeth and still appreciate the language, this adaptation from Geoffrey Wright even butchers the language of the play. What we have is a relatively slim adaptation of Macbeth with much of its substance left out and grim scenes added in.I didn't expect a film adaptation to include everything. Wright however has taken the original text and edited it with a meat cleaver. So many scenes are barely there. The characters of Ross and Lennox are almost non existent and the Witches are mere props rather than characters. Wright takes the lines of the play and adds his own little changes to them. Well, he didn't realize that once he has done this that it ceases to be Shakespeare. I don't think any character in the film speaks in iambic pentameters for any length of time. What we get is an awkward transition from some lines lifted directly from the play and Wright's creations which include big words. Shakespeare isn't about big words it's about the language. The music of the play is completely gone in this Macbeth and it is painfully noticeable.What really got me though is Wright's inclusion of two scenes that Shakespeare wisely put off stage. We aren't supposed to see Macbeth murder Duncan or see Macbeth look over Lady Macbeth's corpse. Shakespeare could be violent,grimly violent, but these scenes are more effective in building the character of Macbeth if we don't see them. Implied violence is so much more effective than seeing the dagger pierce the skin. Shakespeare could have easily have written a scene where Macbeth murders Duncan, he doesn't and it's brilliant. We only see Macbeth drenched in blood obviously already regretting his sins and haunted by the world's eyes. Not only do we see Macbeth kill Duncan in this version but it is a grim scene. Macbeth stabs Duncan multiple times with a vicious fury. Does Macbeth want to be there? The scene doesn't let us see the turmoil in Macbeth's head. He was a good man turned evil by his ambition. That mental transition is the key to Macbeth and we simply don't get the full effect if we see Macbeth kill Duncan.Macbeth looking over his wife's corpse is detrimental to their relationship in the play. I've read Macbeth many times and I can't answer this question, "Do Macbeth and Lady Macbeth love each other?" I tend to think that maybe they don't but I come to a different conclusion every time. Lady Macbeth is obviously flirting with Duncan during their brief interaction together. Their relationship is complex. All Macbeth says when he hears of Lady Macbeth's death is "She should have died hereafter, there would have been time for such a word." The best soliloquy of the play is delivered immediately after but I think Macbeth's "tomorrow" speech is largely about himself. There isn't time for such a word and it seems almost detrimental to the pacing of the final act to see Macbeth lament over his wife. By this time in the story Macbeth has lost his sanity, love is one of the last things on his mind. Maybe he loved her once but by that moment of the play he is incapable of love.The mob setting is really the only new thing about this adaptation and I think it is kind of clever in terms of staging. In terms of storytelling though it hurts Macbeth. Macbeth is about a mans fall from good to evil, does this work in a gangland setting? Macbeth and Duncan are supposed to be moral men at the beginning. You lose that seeing them as criminals. Is it really so far fetched to expect a gang member to kill to advance himself? It really isn't all that shocking. The thought of a kinsman killing a king he loved to advance himself has much more dramatic tension. While I admit there are some cool staging, the gangland setting isn't original enough to cut down the actual Shakespeare for overlong gun battles.

i reckon people should give this film a bit more of a fair go really, sure the opening scene is confusing as hell unless your really paying attention and there are some awkward moments it still is a good adaptation of this famous Shakespeare play. The acting is mostly very good especially from Worthington who plays Macbeth and the Melbourne gangland setting is an interesting concept to me. the way they substituted certain parts of the play was interesting, for example, the bit where the burnam wood is removed to dunsinane (I've probably spelt that wrong) was intriguing, though using trucks to tow a forest to Macbeth's house seems like a bit of overkill in the plot which is where this movie goes wrong. The concepts are very interesting and intriguing but don't really work in many ways but do work in others so the film is left feeling a little odd. all in all, it is worth a red hot go but don't expect a masterpiece like romeo and Juliette by baz luhrman (i think I've spelt that wrong too).

My favorite Macbeth movie adaptation is by far Roman Polanski, which is also one of my favorite movies. This Australian production, directed by Geoffrey Wright, brings the Macbeth story to modern times in the Melbourne underworld. Sam Worthington gives a great performance as Macbeth who along with his crazy Wife Lady Macbeth, plan out to kill the crime boss King Duncan (of course), allowing Macbeth to take over the power. This movie may seem silly at first, I wasn't sure how I was going to like it, but as the movie progresses and the actors recite the Shakespeare dialogue, I found myself drawn into the Macbeth story which I truly love. Along with a very good soundtrack and performances by all, I like this modern Macbeth very much. Shakespeare's Macbeth is a very violent story to begin with, and this version carries that off with plenty of blood and violence. This of course is not for everyone, but being a fan of Macbeth, I enjoyed it.