It's fun, it's light, [but] it has a hard time when its tries to get heavy.

Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

The movie's not perfect, but it sticks the landing of its message. It was engaging - thrilling at times - and I personally thought it was a great time.

Having just seen a condensed version of Shakespeare's Scottish Play performed very convincingly in Scotland by a 6-member Scottish cast, I found this in my local video store.The players in Scotland, with minimal sets but with talent and the right accents, brought all the richness of the dialog to life. It was understandable, it made sense, the characters became real, the drama came to life.The contrast with this movie couldn't be greater. Shakespeare's words spoken by Australian gangsters? A daring concept.But did it work? Hell, no. Not for a second. Silly to expect that it could, really. I don't know any Australian (or any other) gangsters, but it's not hard - especially since Tarantino - to imagine that they really really don't naturally speak in Shakespeare's words. The actors seemed uncomfortable trying to. They said all the words, but without conviction. It felt like they'd gone thru endless retakes to get the wording right, and called it a wrap when they had a take without any actual mistakes.Contrast Richard III, updated to 20th century and filmed in part in Battersea Power Station: when the king's jeep gets stuck, and he yells "A Horse! A Horse! My Kingom for a Horse!!!" it was actually convincing.Still, all's not lost. Look out for a version dubbed into Cantonese, and subtitled back into English in Hong Kong, then it might come across as an edgy piece of action cinema.Until then, sadly, it remains a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

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!

Recap: Not entirely familiar with the Shakespeare story of Macbeth, but my wild guess is that this is pretty close to the original, only set in present time. It tells the story of Macbeth, a member of a crime syndicate in Melbourne (?). He is a valued hit-man and in the favor of leader Duncan. But he and his lady has higher ambitions than that, and plan the murder of Duncan, and any competition of the throne. This is a story of betrayal and cold, brutal death.Comments: Very interesting idea, I must say. To use the story but change the setting to present time, but still keep the original (?) dialog. It sets a huge contrast between the classical poetic work and the violence. Promised to be extremely violent, it is a promise that it keeps, but not in the notion I imagined. It is very bloody indeed, but the violence is slow. Not just figuratively speaking that it is calculated, which it is too, but also literally. A lot of action is actually slowed down to slow motion and that is what brings the movie to its knees.What could have been a unique strength, the contrast between the superfluous and poetic dialog and the extreme violence, now turns into something else entirely. Now both slow the move down painfully much, so much that it actually becomes dull and boring at times.Also I can't figure out the context the three witches act within. Set to present time and reality I figure that such magical witchcraft had no place in the movie. Apparently it does, but to me it seems completely out of place. Not a subplot but a complete sub-story with it's own rules, completely different than the rest of the movie. Seems completely out of place. Surely it must have been possible to convert that part too to something modern. Drug-induced hallucinations perhaps (which I suspect that the director hints at but then he has left way too much witchcraft in it to be believable)? Now they only bring stretches of the movie that is clearly beside the story and I just waited for the real movie to begin again.A clear disappointment, but maybe something for Shakespearean-buffs?4/10

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).