An ambitious failure

Rating: 4/10 (6 December 2013)

The people of Rome are starting to revolt, they're poor, starving and desperate for grain. The police force is merciless. The guy in charge is Martius. When the Volscians threaten to invade, it's again Martius who is in charge of the military unit that meets them at the city of Corolia where he near single-handedly defeats them, not before engaging in a knife duel that ends up in a wrestling match with his sworn enemy Aufidius.
On his return to Rome Martius he's seen as a hero and made a senate consul with the approval of the senate. Next he has to reluctantly ask for the people's permission of sorts. They grant it only to take it back minutes later when two of their representatives who are anti-Martius convince them. These two are constantly scheming to get rid of Martius. In a meeting with these two and with the people, he flips out and starts cursing at the people. When he has to apologize to a live audience on TV again he loses it. That gets him banished from Rome much to the delight of the two schemers.
He does what any reasonable person would do...join forces with the person he hates the most, Aufidius, to take over Rome by force. The Romans send some politician/family friend to convince Martius, who now is a leader among the Volscians, to reconsider, but he won't have any of it. Next they send his mother, wife, and son, to beg for mercy for Rome. He agrees to sign a peace treaty, but that doesn't win him any friends anywhere.
Coriolanus starts out as a modern war/conflict movie with a social message. What initially looks like foreign actors speaking in broken English actually turns out to be Shakesperan English and the entire movie is spoken that way. I've never heard it, but it definitely takes some getting used to, perhaps an hour or so into the movie one gets the hang of it. Unfortunately, that is the biggest drawback of this movie. I guess those with literary inclination feel right at home. I didn't. I didn't find this English beautiful at all. To my ears it sounds like English spoken in Latin grammar. And it's not so much that it's sophisticated and we the viewers are a bunch of dummies. It's just old English, with words forms that are out of usage and with a very cumbersome sentence structure. This forces also the characters to stand there and give speeches to no one in particular making the movie more like a theater piece.
But there are more problems. Martius is very dislikable. He thinks of himself as noble and vastly superior to the common folk. He's a war hawk, childishly uncompromising even when his life is at stake, and holds on to his beliefs like they're religious dogma. So how are we to root for this guy or care about his fate? Especially when his enemy is so much more likable. The story itself is nothing special either. At every step of the way he gets what he deserves. What is interesting though is the political structure, which I assume is based on how Rome worked. Political intrigue is also always entertaining.
Coriolanus is an ambitious and audacious project. It wouldn't surprise me if the intended audience loved it. But I suspect its aim is to go beyond that group and introduce others to Shakespeare, tragedy, and so on. In that regard it failed. It's too long a movie, and I take it too faithful to the original text. Had they settled for a more updated English it could have been a bit better. For instance the English spoken in Spartacus is truly beautiful and would have been ideal for Coriolanus. Tightening the script would also have helped as so much is said that doesn't say anything and doesn't advance the story in any way.