User Reviews

Modernizations of Shakespeare are always a tricky affair. Ones that use the plot but not the dialogue (ie. West Side Story and O) tend to fare better than those that attempt the dialogue as well. Only Baz Luhrmann's Romeo & Juliet really shine in the latter category.

So, it's with no small amount of ambition that director Geoffrey Wright transports Macbeth from the Scottish moors to the Docklands of contemporary Melbourne. Macbeth and Macduff are drug-trading mobsters working under the command of crime boss, Duncan. Lady Macbeth is the trophy wife with a coke habit. So does it work?

Almost.

It gets off to a rather messy beginning with short, fragmented scenes inundated with characters and some blink-or-you'll-miss-it backstory. The film doesn't really hit its stride until Macbeth and his Lady invite Duncan to their house and the blood starts to flow. By this point, however, my attention was already beginning to wane and judgement was already being passed.

One of the major problems of the film is that what makes Macbeth so great on stage simply doesn't translate to film. Even Polanski's version never quite gets there. There are too many secondary characters that are too similar and they distract you from the main story – Macbeth and his ambition – a part of the film that gets surprisingly little screen time and never really develops any momentum or psychological crediblity.

Little snippets of scenes and character come across the screen so quickly and seem to have so little relevance that it becomes quite a frustrating watch. What should be an exciting, adrenaline pumping film (such as Wright's earlier film, Romper Stomper) becomes bogged down and the finale is anti-climactic and has no emotional resonance. One begins to wonder why they bothered to modernise the play or even tell it at all. The theme of murder begets murder doesn't really shine through and Macbeth never seems that ambitious nor do we see much difference in his circumstance as he begins his bloody rise. Maybe the film should have taken a few more chances or liberties with the text– why you'd include the line "merciful heavens" after the announcement of one character's murder and not expect the audience to laugh is beyond me. At the very least, some deeper thought needed to be given to the modernising of the text. It seems a little too much like it's just been run through the "REPLACE" feature on Microsoft Word. Replace swords with guns. Witches with schoolgirls. Dread with campy hissing.

Sam Worthington brings his typical Aussie masculinity to the role and once he gets warmed up, does quite a fine job even though he has to compete with some rather odd costumes including a paisley leisure suit and a leather kilt that drew more than few titters from the audience. Victoria Hill as Lady Macbeth is also quite believable and her "come you spirits" monologue, delivered in voice over as she walks down the driveway to greet Duncan, is one of the film's finer moments. The actors who really shine are the ones you least expect though – The Molloy brothers as Macbeth's semi-loyal henchmen nail it while Louis Corbett in the almost silent role of Macduff's son has a quiet intensity that much of the film sorely needs.

Stylistically, the film shines. It's probably the best use of HD I've seen so far with great colours and a strong, confident approach to the design – think Scarface goes to Moulin Rouge as directed by Mario Bava. And one should applaud the film for its ambition. It's nice to see an Australian film really take some risks and try something different. But ultimately it's a hollow, unengaging experience that seems to be trying too hard to shock its audience and ends up boring them instead. Maybe they should play it alongside Book of Revelation as two films that should have rocked us but didn't. Disappointing.

Geoffrey Wright, the director of "Romper Stomper", transplants Shakespeare's "Macbeth" in the contemporary, criminal underworld of Melbourne, Australia. The result is a semi-awful piece of cinema. Sam Worthington is Macbeth, and walks around looking very self-conscious and bored. Victoria Hill, who wrote the script with Wright, is Lady Macbeth, and she's neither awful nor good. Lachy Hulme, who plays McDuff, is the only actor in the cast who exudes any kind of authority. The rest, including Gary Sweet, are wasted and misdirected. Shot on HD by the late Will Gibson, the movie's visuals lack character. Everything is too clean and too deliberately lit. Wright's direction is uninspired in the extreme and the action sequences are confusing and inept. Marketed erroneously as "the most violent Australia movie ever", the film is violent at times and reasonably bloody, but it fails to deliver a single impactful moment. Slow moving and terribly pretentious, this umpteenth silver screen version of the classic play is the personification of wrong-headed.

The Play Macbeth was written by William Shakespeare between the years of 1604 and 1606. Ever since then, many other versions of the play have been produced, including remakes completed in 1948, 1971, and 2006. Akira Kurosawa even directed a Japanese version of Macbeth in 1957 entitled, "Kumonosu jô." The play starts out with King Duncan hearing about the success of two of his generals, Macbeth and Banquo, in a recent battle with the Irish and the Norwegians. After a quick promotion from Duncan, Macbeth instantly gets an uncanny feeling for lust, greed, and power and does everything in his power to gain access to the crown: even if it includes murder.

Geoffrey Wright tried creating his own version of the famous play in 2006 by setting it in the modern Melbourne underworld. Just imagine a lowly Macbeth slaying hundreds of soldiers with an AK-47 and rapping his own rendition of, "Low" at the same time. Just kidding about the latter, but one thing he does do is utter the traditional Shakespeare. And he keeps it going throughout the whole movie. That's right! Shakespeare meets ghetto. It's all you could ever hope for! Not… The newest Macbeth is rough and violent enough to match up with any other modern day action film, but it lacks decent acting, the right lingo, and a good technique of camera work.

The modernized movie starts out with Macbeth (Sam Worthington) who works as a hit man/drug dealer for Duncan (Gary Sweet), a drug lord from Melbourne, Australia. After being promoted to the Thane of Glamis by Duncan (as the three witches had predicted), aspiration starts to take over Macbeth as he sets his eyes on the throne. After promoting Macbeth, Duncan invites himself over to Macbeth's house for a night of drugs and alcohol. Before the festivities begin, Lady Macbeth (Victoria Hall) talks Macbeth into killing Duncan to take power over the throne. After the bodyguards are drunk and everyone's asleep, Macbeth sneaks into Duncan's room and stabs him to death. After his murder, Macbeth takes all of Duncan's belongings including hid title and crown. Just as soon as he thinks he's got what he wanted, he finds out that it will take more than bribery and running away to solve his problems.

One major flaw of the movie was the acting. A once seemingly flamboyant and empowered Macbeth suddenly turns into a sissy. And he looks like a sad puppy dog throughout the entire film. I don't really know if this was Worthington's or Wright's fault, but either way, one of the two should have realized Macbeth was a king, not a knot on a log that took everything his wife had to say literally. Like I said earlier, Macbeth should have been rude, arrogant, and spiteful. But when his character changes over to a drug lord, he changes personalities as well I suppose. On the other hand, Lady Macbeth really knew how to nip it in the bud when it came to recognizing and personifying her character. She didn't seem quite as spiteful as she was in the play or the 1971 version, but she reminds Macbeth that compared to murder, anything else he could possibly do, wouldn't quite match up.

Another thing I found distasteful was all the nudity. This fluke HAD to be Wright's fault. The witches didn't do a bit of acting, unless you call parading around in your birthday suit acting. At one point in the film, I started to wonder if I was watching Macbeth or Unique Positions Vol. 2.

Don't get me wrong when I say I find the Shakespearean dialogue out of place. It's spoken flawlessly, but when it's spoken by an Australian gangster, it's just really weird. When Macbeth starts to kill people off, he first lets them know by talking to them in Ye Olde English. Macbeth contains plenty of action, blood, gore, and nudity to last anyone a lifetime. You forget all the positive facts though when you start to think to yourself, "Okay, what in the heck did he just say in that last sentence?" At some points in the movie, I don't even think the actors themselves knew what they were saying. The new age-ness of the movie could have easily been pulled off it weren't for the, "Thou's" and the, "Thee's".

The camera work was just simply fair for me. One thing I could not stand was the constant pacing back and forth between characters. The camera technique used gave off that Blair Witch sort of vibe and made me throw up a little in my mouth. Matt Reeves tried to attempt the same concept of camera work in, Clover field but it just doesn't work. It makes me want to get out of my chair and look around for the little barf bags they have conveniently planted on every seat in the airplanes.

Looking back on it all, the gangsta' Macbeth holds one positive: plenty of action. Other than that, the movie contains nothing more than uninspired acting, correct English usage, and stomach-turning camera work. The soundtrack holds one or two of the same songs, but each song is edited or remixed differently for every scene. There is never a variation of interesting or captivating media used. From now on out, directors should leave the dangerous drug underworld to Al Pacino and Robert Deniro. Future renditions of Macbeth should be created just as Shakespeare intended the play to be 400 years ago. I would recommend using medieval clothing, Ye Olde English, swords and shields and a soundtrack prepared by Enya. But either way, the modern Macbeth makes you yearn for some good 'ole folk music, a camp fire, and a bustier.

Macbeth is one of the most frequently told stories in cinema and has been translated many times in numerous theater and celluloid settings. Originally written by William Shakespeare in the early 1600's, Macbeth tells the story of betrayal among royalty and one man's quest for power. Director Geoffrey Wright (Romper Stomper) tries his hand at updating Macbeth by setting it in the contemporary Melbourne underworld. A film where the characters substitute swords for guns (ala Baz Luhrman's Romeo and Juliet) and royal vassals for gangsters, Macbeth is a gritty, violent, but critically flawed film.

Macbeth (Sam Worthington)works for King Duncan (Gary Sweet). After being elevated to the Thane of Glamis by The King (as was prophesied to Macbeth by three witches), Macbeth starts setting his eyes on the throne. One night the King comes to stay at Macbeth's house and Lady Macbeth (Victoria Hill) talks him into killing The King to assume power. Macbeth kills his master and then assumes his crown. But success has it's downside, as Macbeth soon finds out, when he has to go to hideous lengths to protect his murderous secret.

OK, first things first. The film's major fault is Sam Worthington. His portrayal of Macbeth is in a word... boring. I honestly didn't care about Macbeth while watching the film. I had more sympathy for Victoria Hill's Lady Macbeth because she bothered to act at least. Worthington sits sullen and wood faced throughout the entire film. I felt like he was doing his best impression of Johnny Deep's George Jung character from Blow... but without the charisma. I have never seen Worthington in a film before so I'm not sure if it was his or the Director's fault, but either way the glue that should have tied everything together into one cohesive unit is weak.

The dialog is good, but when matched up to the Geoffrey Wright's Australian Gangster Motif seems a bit out of place. Frentically paced action sequences mixed with long Shaksperian musings creates pacing conflict within the film. I understand that this is Macbeth and that the director wanted to use the original dialog intact. But hard, fast action scenes following a three minute soliloquy tends to get annoying if not a bit pretentious.

The camera-work is highly stylized, and for the most part, it works well. One thing that I found annoying was how the camera would slowly jostle back and forth, almost constantly. I don't mind shots like that it's just overdone. It's passes beyond the realm of being cool and stylish and instead becomes irritating. Other than that, the art direction and cinematography is fairly well-done.

For all of the good qualities Macbeth possesses; stylish direction, Shakespearian dialog, a strong soundtrack, supernatural nude witches(the weird sisters), and good helpings of brutal, bloody violence. All of these strengths are forgotten when one considers Sam Worthington's uninspired portrayal of Macbeth. The role of Macbeth was essential for tying everything together and in this respect Geoffrey Wright and Sam Worthington failed miserably, making Macbeth a forgettable foray into Shakespeare.

i mean it i got interested into this film after reading some reviews & the poster looked cool even the story sounded awesome its not Hollywood its from Australian cinema i have read Shakespeare & seen a few films based on his plays & as someone on the boards here said in a sarcastic manner that this guy Shakespeare writes the best movies ever of course that is true i agree Shakespeare maybe gone centuries ago but his legacy continues however when you adapt something from someone who is considered a legend in literature you need to be careful it is not joke honestly William Shakespeare will never be the same again this has created a bad impact on my mind.

Macbeth 2006 is a film adapted from one of the plays Shakespeare wrote this is a modern take on it i mean the guns,girls,gangs etc usual stuff thrown in just for the attraction it focuses more on the style then substance i found the grittiness & sharpness in the characters absolutely missing they are so dull i mean anyone who has ever read Shakespeare will agree that this film tried to mock him.

the plot:Macbeth is a drug-lord/gangster who is the leader of one of the gangs in Melbourne Australia this is the story of how he falls.

look at here these guys didn't even show his rise to the top there is no back story or whatever of how he became a bad guy they simply made him extra tragic then he ever was the script was good but ruined by terrible direction Macbeth lives in a large mansion with heavy security hes got witches & his very own lady Macbeth.

Macbeth dresses more like a playboy or film star then a gangster his love angle with lady Macbeth is rather weird then interesting just how can Macbeth got to other ugly women when he has the hottest lady Macbeth with him the guy is dumb or what he makes wrong choices most of the time no wonder he ends up in a mess.

the cast:Sam Worthington looks hot here long hair style suits him this was before he came to Hollywood i saw him in avatar 2009 great actor but sadly he is misused here,rest cast is wasted except few women but the one that deserves getting mentioned is Victoria Hill this lady is stunning & beautiful plus she can act damn well too i wish she was more famous.

if anyone is expecting this to be a stylish slick flick get ready to be disappointed this does feature gunfight,car chases & some sex & nudity but the who project is badly shot the camera work is awful it looks like a below average 90s porno film with unnecessary blood the only good thing are the kissing scenes between Macbeth & lady Macbeth that is the only time camera sits down properly other then that rest of the film is shaky cam or gorilla style & too dark have these guys ever heard of lights i mean common & who is the sound mixer of this film the music completely overshadows the dialogs a lot of background noise i simply lost interest in this film but kept watching only because of Victoria Hill & Sam Worthington it got me bored.

the film can't decide which genre it wants to be in the constant shifting of tones was annoying it is one weird movie i tell you bad guys can summon themselves out of nowhere as for Macbeth one moment he is sad & another he is instantly hitting the clubs & going to parties just what was going on here the filmmakers tired to blend way too much Gothic themes in here & failed i kept thinking who is Macbeth supposed to be is he even a human or some vampire this film just wanted to be something like director Tim Burton makes.

Overall Macbeth 2006 will go down in history as a desperate & most terrible idea to adapt a Shakespeare play into the big screen my rating is 3/10.

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

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.