Review for Macbeth

If you ask anyone to name a Shakespeare play they will generally come up with one of the Tragedies. Whether it be Romeo and Juliet or Hamlet, but the one that always intrigued me was Macbeth. Often referred to as 'The Scottish Play' it is a wonderful story of greed, lust for power, love and loss.

Macbeth is a warrior under the Scottish King Duncan. He is told by witches that he will be King and is persuaded by his wife, The Lady Macbeth to carry out the deed of killing Duncan. This sets up a mystery for Macbeth of who will betray him and whether he will be able to stop them, before his reign is brought down upon his head.

I have to admit that this film looks fantastic. It really does. Rather than going the usual way of updating the setting like Baz Luhrman did with Romeo and Juliet, it is a very rugged and real look at this play much like Kenneth Branagh's Henry V. Director Justin Kurzel is able to bring this play to life in such a way that is just a feast for the eyes.

BUT...

I have to admit, watching this film was a bit of a chore. My problem with this film is that it felt too slow. Performances are fantastic, Michael Fassbender and Marion Cotillard as Macbeth and Lady Macbeth are mesmerising and I think if this had been a live performance I would have been astounded.

BUT...

Again the film was just too slow. I felt that it lingered far too much on the scenery and could have had about twenty minutes if not more cut out to make this film flow a lot better. At less than two hours I have seen longer versions of this play (Polanksi's 1971 version for example), but it just felt like I was God in Monty Python and the Holy Grail screaming for everyone to just GET ON WITH IT!

That being said. I cant deny that this is a perfect rendering of Shakespeare's play. If I was in school, studying in the text it really got to grips with every aspect. I just found at times that I was wanting more to happen. The action scenes are wonderful and the interplay between all of the actors is perfect, but again it would have been much more appreciated if it had been a live performance.

There are a number of featurettes about the making of the film and these are all great. They look at most aspects of the film. It is a shame that there is no commentary as it would have been nice to have heard why certain things happened.

Macbeth is one of those films that I enjoyed, but will probably never watch again. It was a chore and it is not surprising that it has been mostly ignored on the run up to awards season as this will be seen as a great attempt to bring Shakespeare to the big screen, but maybe falls a little short of being a must-see event.