Just perfect...
It's fun, it's light, [but] it has a hard time when its tries to get heavy.
View MoreI wanted to like it more than I actually did... But much of the humor totally escaped me and I walked out only mildly impressed.
View MoreExcellent characters with emotional depth. My wife, daughter and granddaughter all enjoyed it...and me, too! Very good movie! You won't be disappointed.
View MoreUpon sitting down to write a rant about this film I suddenly realised that there are actually quite a few cinematic versions of The Scottish Play and there are a number that I would like to see (and own, particularly the new Patrick Stewart version, and the Roman Polanski version) that I sometime wonder if I will end up going over old ground. However, considering that this is a rant, and this version is, and would be different, to the other versions, plus the source document, that it should be okay.This is an Australian production of the Scottish Play by the director of Romper Stomper (which is a good movie, and a tragedy to boot, though not at the standard of the Shakespearian tragedies) and I call this movie by the tag of 'Macbeth with Machine Guns'. I must admit, I really do like the concept of Macbeth with Machine Guns, and though putting Elizabethan English into a setting involving the contemporary Melbourne underworld does cause problems, I guess we can sit back and watch an excessively bloody and violent Shakespeare play made even more so. I remember taking my sister to see this film, and she was horrified. Not only due to the sex (and while Shakespeare is not pornographic, sex does play a role within his plays), but also due to the violence. My response was 'welcome to Shakespeare'.In this film, I have to say that Lady Macbeth is a bitch. She is truly the villain, and while the witches enchant Macbeth (and I wonder if the sexual elements to Macbeth's encounter with the witches was the intention of Shakespeare) it is Lady Macbeth that goads Macbeth into performing the deed. Of course, once he has done the deed, while he is crowned king, his kingdom quickly falls apart as he begins to kill everybody that poses a threat to him. One of the lines that struck me is when he says that since he killed a man in his sleep, he will never again get a good night's sleep.This is a good, low budget film, and quite clever as well. The scene about the woods coming to Dunsinae involves a truck with logs on the back, and then Macbeth's enemies sneak into his house hiding in the logs on the truck. There is also the police presence in which they have Macbeth under surveillance, however I believe that these scenes were added to give the play a much more contemporary feeling, and I note that they do not come into the film at the end. It is simply a gang war, and I feel that this is probably a really good contemporary setting for the play.While watching this, I wondered if one could do a similar thing with King Lear. I believe we could, placing the scene into the East End of London (similar to Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels). I also wonder if we could play with the dialogue a bit, such as changing the word sword to gun. Still, if I were to make a contemporary movie based on a Shakespeare play, then it would be Julius Ceaser with jet fighters.A final thing I liked about the movie is that there are a lot of scenes were there is action, but no dialogue. I thought that that was very well done by Wright. Obviously he did not want to add any more to the dialogue than Shakespeare already had, and simply used action to outline what is happening before and between the scenes. That is a similar thing that Stoppard does in Rosencrantz & Guildenstern are dead (though what he does is have the poetic dialogue of Shakespeare during the scenes from Shakespeare, and ordinary vernacular outside of those scenes). I believe if any more dialogue was added to what Shakespeare had, then it would have destroyed the movie. Granted, while Elizabethan poetic English does not seem to sit well in a contemporary gangland setting, one simply cannot beat Shakespeare's masterful use of the English language.
View MoreNo matter what well-meaning directors decide to do to Mr. Shakespeare, he will survive--and every time some folks decide to re-interpret the play, he is, in some way, enriched--sometimes sometimes just through another exposure, but often as in this mod "Gangster Version," something like the frequently asked question "Did the Macbeths have any children?" will pop up and get discussed.An early scene in this Aussie Macbeth has Lady Macbeth grieving over a dead child's tombstone, giving her a lot of motivation for ensuing diabolical actions; Although there is excessive violence in the film, Mr. Shakespeare can take credit for a good deal of it--consider the dozens of times the word "blood" appears in the play--it's justified.Unless the viewer is familiar with the play, this film may not make a lot of sense, as the original Shakespearian language is used--but cut, considerably. Would that the actor playing Banquo or Macduff had been cast as Macbeth, as Sam Worthington, while adequate, lacks the intense charisma such a tortured soul needs, and looks a little more like an unhappy rock star. Nevertheless, save for some naughty nude semi-orgies, this would be a good film to show to a high school class, comparing it, for instance, to the bare-bones Orson Welles version, which was filmed on unused Republic Film Studio western sets--sprayed with water! The Welles version, sometimes hard to listen to as his actors often use a heavy Scots brogue, shows considerably more strength, has an exciting visual sense and cleaves to the theme in lieu of modern attitude.
View MoreGeoffrey 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!
View MoreTo quote a fellow student, this version of Macbeth is exactly what Baz Lurhmann's Romeo + Juliet tried to be and failed. Here, the story of Macbeth is updated to 21st century Australia, featuring drug deals gone wrong, seductive witches, and laser guns.To say that this is the best Shakespeare movie I've ever seen is an understatement. It completely blows everything else out of the water. The first fifteen minutes sucked me in like no other: witches spray painting blood onto statues in a chilling graveyard scene, Macbeth and company whipping out machine guns to the tune of the Devastations, and Macbeth encountering the witches while on a drug trip - it sounds absolutely ludicrous, and yet the movie is filmed so artistically that you can't help but want more.One of the things that impressed me the most about this film and the actors in it was the dialogue. Oftentimes actors sound unbelievable when they recite lines from Shakespeare, as if they themselves have no idea what they're saying or they can't quite figure out which words they're supposed to emphasize. Sam Worthington in particular was excellent with his lines, delivering them perfectly and with a certain je ne sais quoi that reminded me at times of Johnny Depp in Pirates of the Caribbean. Gary Sweet as Duncan was also wonderful. Victoria Hill as Lady Macbeth was at times hit or miss, but she absolutely nailed the scenes in which her character was succumbing to madness.Several people, when discussing this movie, have complained that the original dialogue has been modified. To be honest, this didn't really bother me - after all, the movie is set in modern times, and in order to maintain credibility it is only natural that some of the dialogue would have to be cut or changed. The one grievance I did have was concerning the famous "tomorrow" speech. I didn't mind its relocation to the end of the movie, where it was actually better placed than after Lady Macbeth's death. What slightly irritated me, however, was the fact that the last few lines of the speech were cut off, which was an unnecessary change.Another topic of controversy is the role that the witches played. Turning them into seductresses was a clever move, especially since it contributed to the fantastic scene in which they speak to Macbeth for the first time, but the foursome with Macbeth was fairly gratuitous. I really didn't need to see the witches screaming "Macbeth! Oh, Macbeth!" in ecstasy while they climaxed in various positions; no, really, I didn't.One last thing: for the most part, the violence in this movie is fairly non-graphic. However, Lady Macduff's death scene was extremely disturbing, and I would advise viewer discretion while watching it.Overall, aside from a few minor irritations, this version of Macbeth is a winner. Not only does it throw Shakespeare into modern times, which is always a refreshing change, but it does so without coming across as over-the-top or just plain stupid (a trap its predecessor, Romeo + Juliet, didn't quite manage to escape). The actors are excellent, the alternating rock and trance music serves as a perfect soundtrack, and everything about it is entertainment at its best.This is the movie they should be showing English classes when covering Macbeth - guaranteed, students will pay attention.
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