A complete waste of time

Rating: 2/10 (29 July 2016)

MACBETH is one of my very favourite Shakespeare plays. It has all of the gruesome violence and tragic outcomes that one expects from a Shakespeare tragedy, and there are not one but two outstanding movie adaptations of the play that have gone down in history as classics (Kurosawa's THRONE OF BLOOD and Polanski's MACBETH). The good thing about Shakespeare is that he always lends himself well to new adaptations of his work, so I was intrigued by this new, low key effort.
I shouldn't have bothered. As directed by SNOWTOWN's Justin Kurzel, MACBETH is a miserable viewing experience and one of the worst Shakespeare adaptations I've had the misfortune to sit through. It's an incessantly arty production in which Kurzel seems to be constantly trying to capture the perfect shot. His low key and sombre direction worked with the horrifying SNOWTOWN, but on MACBETH he feels completely out of his depth, missing the gravitas of the play and the genuine drama and horror of many of the scenes.
The opening battle sequence is one of the worst filmed I've witnessed. Kurzel has got hold of one of those irritating ultra slow-motion cameras and uses it copiously, much like those annoying BBC cameramen at Wimbledon. The battle is a disjointed, badly-edited mass of random acts of violence and participants who look like they're on the highlights reel of a rugby match. It's awful, pretentiously awful stuff, and I very nearly switched off at that point.
I stuck around to see typically strong performances from Michael Fassbender and Marion Cotillard negated by the decision to have them mumble their dialogue, leaving the viewer straining throughout to make out just what they're saying. The casting director has done a sterling job of assembling a fine squad of actors so it's a pity they're all wasted in this incessantly dull and unlikeable film. Kurzel's attempts to recreate mass battles of the likes of BRAVEHEART (a notable influence) on a tiny budget are also ill advised, leaving MACBETH looking like nothing more than a high school play. My advice? Stick with one of those two versions of the story I mentioned earlier in this review.