a muddled effort that fundamentally misunderstands the play

Rating: 3/10 (14 December 2015)

Not sure what I just watched. Every scene was cold and lifeless. Lady Macbeth could not decide if she were Scottish or English.... mostly she was just shell shocked and incapable of any emotion, particularly the passion she should have for her husband. Macbeth's castle, where he is supposed to defend the king, is worse than a poor Mongol's circle of yurts. Any wandering cow could have passed the tent entrance and gored the king to death.
The most important scenes are turned on their heads for no apparent reason and to the great diminishment of the work. The dagger doesn't float. It is carried by a ghost over to the king's bed. The King's ghost skips the feast perhaps the most important scene in the play - clearly spelled out by the bard. No ghost occupies Macbeth's chair. The director favors having a less important ghost at a side table, thereby removing the force of King Duncan's presence and the cause of Macbeth's madness.
The most intriguing prophesy in all of Shakespeare - Birnam wood moving to Dunsinane- - it goes up in smoke, literally. The forest doesn't move, so there is no reason for Macbeth to fear failure, yet he falls anyway, which makes it a pointless and inaccurate prophecy. So why not cut it out? In the end Macbeth is replaced (as king) by a child killer. Good does not prevail. The new king takes up a sword and goes chasing a child across the moors, despite the fact that Shakespeare goes to great lengths to establish Prince Malcolm as an honest and mild virgin.
The film is beautiful, in many respects, but it is a scandal to say it is Shakespeare's play - or that it is good.
Roman Polanski did a version that was true to the play. This version felt like Peter Jackson took over and tried to make it more-better.
We are not amused.