It's a mild crowd pleaser for people who are exhausted by blockbusters.

I am only giving this movie a 1 for the great cast, though I can't imagine what any of them were thinking. This movie was horrible

This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.

There's a more than satisfactory amount of boom-boom in the movie's trim running time.

Looking back, I realize that Orson Welles received immense fame in movies like "Citizen Kane" and...that's about it. It's a pity the only other thing he did that was remembered was star in commercials about peas. "Citizen Kane" was so good every movie he made afterwards was compared to it. While that is of course his best work, I think it's important we look at all the other wonderful films he made as he truly was in a wide variety of classics. A lot of people probably haven't even heard of this version.This is a great movie because of all the wonderful costumes and set designs. Everything just has great atmosphere here. It's weird how the most recognizable elements from the story are the three witches, who appear relatively little in the play at all. I still regard "Throne Of Blood" as the best adaptation of this play and for that matter, probably any Shakespearean work. The acting is very good in this movie and they know how to create good atmosphere. It was interesting watching this and being reminded of the plot elements of the classic tale. It seems silly to put a synopsis as most people know it already. If not, this movie will refresh your memory as it is a wonderfully faithful adaptation. Orson Welles wanted to be remembered for all of his great movies. ***1/2

Even in this, the first of a trio of bardic adaptations Welles was showing how Shakespeare should be adapted for the big screen and the fact that he did better with Othello and better still with Chimes At Midnight is evidence of a genius at work. If you look at the film today you might be forgiven for thinking that Jeanette Nolan disappeared without trace after making a fairly decent fist of Lady Macbeth, not a bit of it, already married to John McIntire, she played Larry Hart's (Mickey Rooney) mom that very same year and ended a long career playing Robert Redford's mom in The Horse Whisperer. Welles' strength - apart, of course, from the voice, is his strongly developed atmospheric sense which is perfect for what is almost a pre-Gothic Gothic story laden with brooding clouds and craggy terrain. Working - as always post-Kane - with a stick of gum Welles performs miracles and turns in a memorable movie.

In the time of William Shakespeare's time there were just two kinds of stories. If something bad happened it was a drama. IF not is was a comedy. But if this story was made now of the very first time as a Hollywood movie. There is enough about evil witches and murder that it would have been grouped as a horror story. It is a horror story. It is one of the best horror stories ever. It is very scary. This is one of the scariest movies ever. It has a great story line. It also has great acting. This is one of O.r.s.o.n Welles best not Citizen Kane. That has got be one of his worst. This is a great movie. This movie is must see. This is better then Richard III.

"My purpose in making Macbeth was not to make a great film." - Orson WellesShot on a meagre budget over just 23 days, plagued by pre and post production problems and mutilated by Republic Pictures before being restored many years later, Orson Welles' "Macbeth" is nevertheless a fine take on William Shakespeare's now well-known tragedy. Welles keeps things interesting by passing the material through a noir filter, with devious femme fatales, expressionistic sets, chiaroscuro lighting, poor saps, much existential brooding, fated demises and an onslaught of clever compositions, long takes and camera tricks. One gets the impression that Welles, because he was plagued by financial and production difficulties, was always desperate to pack as much razzle dazzle into his films as possible. He might, after all, never get another chance to direct.Welles famously shot "Macbeth" only as a means of gathering funds for future projects. The film is nevertheless very good, and echoes a number of his other pictures (particularly "Citizen Kane"), with its characters who lust for power and whose aspirations for control, stature and "greatness" result in their own downfalls. This, of course, all echoes Welles' own tragic career. Welles the legend seems to himself be some great, fallen Shakespearean King, dethroned and left to wander alone in exile.Welles would direct three films based on Shakespeare's works (and many theatre productions, one of which was "Voodoo Macbeth", which featured an all African American cast), his best being perhaps "Chimes at Midnight". Welles' "Macbeth" doesn't quite touch Akira Kurosawa's and to a lesser extent Roman Polanski's take on the same Shakespeare play – Kurosawa's is more tense, subtle, restrained ("Throne of Blood"), Polanski's is gloomier, more corporeal – but there are stretches here that surpass anything Kurosawa and Polanski do. Welles' landscapes, bathed in shadow and ominous thunder, suggest some mad mind-space, where power's pursuit turns everyone into fanged barbarians, and every now and then he'll zap your eyeballs with some off-beat image or composition. Welles, who also stars in the film, also includes several sad passages which echo his' own off-screen wounds; the recent collapse of his marriage, the studio mutilations of "Shanghai" and "Ambersons", the collapse of several film projects...there's a strong autobiographical quality to Welles' films; Welles, the doomed and the damned.For those familiar with the "Macbeth" play, there isn't much new here; lots of talking heads, soliloquies and monologues. But a nightmarish, deliberately primitive aesthetic helps keeps the dialogue fresh, and the film should play well to younger audiences who've never read Shakespeare, sat through a stage-play, or are unfamiliar with "Macbeth's" plot.8/10 - Destroyed by critics and producers upon release, "Macbeth" would be reappraised with the release of a special "restored cut" in 1980. Worth two viewings. See Kurosawa's "Ran", one of the finest Shakespeare adaptations.