If you're familiar with this Shakespearian tragedy, just blend it into a crime movie, while keeping the dialogue in tact, as if spouted out of fellow stage thespians. But remember here, this is film. An interesting and experimental idea, unfortunately while being immensely entertaining, fails ultimately on one level, cause the thespian uttered dialogue doesn't work or gel. If done like 1990's Men of Respect, who knows how this would of turned out. Probably not much better I reckon'. But still, this is a bloody good show helped by some colorful performances from some actors, you'll underestimate. I'm chiefly speaking about Mick Molloy who does his best work, as a merciless hit-man, killing a mother and child with barbwire. The photography is fantastic, from it's hand-held opening. Macbeth boasts style and is something different, from a director who makes very few movies. Wright's 4th pic is almost up with Romper Stomper, although I have yet to see Cherry Falls.

I really appreciate the effort to make this film. Not many of The Bards masterpieces can be pulled off in a true modern adaptation like Baz Lurhmans 1996 Rome and Juliet. Some elements were creative, like using school girls for the Weird Sisters, and Narco Wars for feudal times. But did Lady MacBeth have to be coke fueled and barren? I found it a shame that they chose to omit the porter at the gate. These are the elements that give Shakespears work richness and timeliness. I hope Hollywood keeps trying to make modern versions of Shakespeares work. When they pull it off it's magnificent. I can envision Julius Caesar set in a modern capitol.

This is the best movie I've seen this year. I simply loved it, I thought it did a superb job of bringing the concept of MacBeth into the 21st century.First, I want to address the criticisms. It seems to me that people went to this movie expecting the wrong thing: either they wanted a movie like Romper Stomper, and didn't get one, so feel that MacBeth is somehow lacking; or, they're offended by the transplantation of MacBeth and consequent modifications, or they're expecting a performance like that in a theater rather than that of a movie. Those, however, are more their own expectations than the movie's flaws. As a movie, this is quality work, and I enjoyed every minute of it.The transformation into drug lords was really quite effective. I think the movie captured the essence of what Shakespeare (or maybe de Vere) had in mind in writing the play...the English didn't look upon the Scots lords as anything more than petty thugs to begin with, and the squabbling over relatively small spoils at the cost of men's lives works for either medieval Scotland or a drug lord.The violence is also necessary, it brings to mind exactly the sort of violence that Shakespeare has in mind. Does it matter if MacDuff's son is shot or run through with a sword--no, because the point is the willingness of MacBeth to kill children to maintain his position, and how it loses him the loyalty of most of his supporters: brutal and thuggish violence is okay...but spare the children.I didn't mind the Shakespearean language or the acting at all. I've seen a lot of criticisms of Worthington...sorry, but you don't watch this film looking for the next Olivier. And because I wasn't expecting the Royal Shakespeare Ensemble, I thought the acting, with a special nod to Victoria Hill as Lady MacBeth, was more than adequate for the film's need to render Shakespeare's words. In respect to the actual dialogue, the film was strong enough that the Shakespearean lines are automatically converted into your own English...when Banquo tells his son, "Fleance, fly, fly, fly", it's easy enough to hear, "get out of here".I also thoroughly enjoyed the small touches...the basins in which Lady MacBeth and her husband washed the blood off, I loved the "are you riding" to Banquo and yeah, except it's bikes not horses, there were so many little touches that just kept the play in mind even as you watched the movie, you knew that the truck was going to have a sign saying, "Birnham Timber"...one after another the technical renditions of the details into the 21st century kept me with a smile on my face throughout the movie.And I think there's things that you pick up in this movie that you necessarily don't in the play. Lennox meeting with Lady MacDuff after the latter flees...their obvious interest in each other as people going beyond his duty as "cousin"...that's something which, exactly because MacBeth is such a strong stage presence, you're not likely to pick up in the theater because your attention is focused on him, but which is possible to bring to the fore in a movie in which the setting makes their conversation believable and, therefore, meaningful enough to pick up on their feelings for each other.I also thought the movie was very well made. Others have complained about camera angles, something that I thought just kept the movie moving apace...I thought it was very well filmed, very crisp. Some have suggested that it could have been a bit broader in settings and numbers of cast...but that's an example of being unable to please all folks, because had the director opted for that route, those who would have been looking for a more Shakespearian cast to the movie would have been even more disappointed. I thought Geoffrey Wright struck an excellent balance between modernism and traditionalism, both in action and settings, that, once again, kept the movie closely tethered to the play, but fully played out in our own time and place. If I had one criticism of the movie, I would echo another in questioning the change in place, and especially the truncating, of the "Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow" soliloquy. I cannot for the life of me imagine why the director chose that way...I guess he wanted to use it looking down at MacBeth and his lady, both dead, as a cautionary third person, but it is so much more effective as MacBeth realizes it, with such deep bitterness, first person in his own life.Other than that one flaw, however, I thought this movie was perfect, and just cannot recommend it highly enough to anyone who wants to see MacBeth come to life in our own time and place.

It is refreshing to rest assured that Shakespeare remains a viable writer and no matter how his plays are manipulated or 'updated' or altered or interpreted, his majesty of the English language remains intact and the impact of his ideas and words sustain even the most bizarre reconsiderations. Such, for this viewer, is the case of MACBETH as condensed for the screen by writer/actress Victoria Hill and directed with intensity and sensitivity of communication by Geoffrey Wright. The result may seem to be a bloody mad feud suggesting a majority of the teen driven films of today, but consider the source: imagining Shakespeare's MACBETH without the gore would mean the meat had been removed.Transferred from Scotland to Melbourne, Australia, the well-known fight for kingship among the Scots is transposed to be the turf struggle for supremacy in the underworld gangland of Melbourne. The script and the direction make this transposition work, using the original dialog from the play, placing it in the voices and bodies of an all-Australian cast, to the point that the allegiance of the actors as to place is far less important than the telling of a powerful tale of ambition. Sam Worthington makes an enigmatic yet strong Macbeth, well paired by Victoria Hill as his conniving and ultimately mad wife Lady Macbeth: the two form a chemistry that serves the original intent of the author well. The many characters who rise and fall in the wake of the ambition of Macbeth tend to blend a bit because of the condensation of the script, but Gary Sweet as the doomed Duncan, Steve Batoni as Banquo, and Lachy Hulme as Macduff are particularly fine. The three witches whose predictions drive the play here become nude seductresses and are well interpreted by Miranda Nation, Chloe Armstrong, and Kate Bell.The battle scenes are appropriately gruesome and the musical score that accompanies this film is an odd mixture of rock and piano transcriptions of Beethoven symphony movements. With the bracing cinematography by Will Gibson it all works well. Unfortunately the Shakespearean language can become lost with the heavy Aussie accents and subtitles would have been helpful. But if your television set has that subtitle option available, this small defect can be overcome. Yes, it helps to know the original play well in order to fully appreciate the transposition, but the script and cast and director make a fine case for involving even the uninitiated into the power of MACBETH. Worth your time, this. Grady Harp