Shakespeare was a magnificent writer. His stories, while well received, are also incredibly hard to transfer into movie format. While occasionally you will have a masterpiece, like Romeo and Juliet it’s incredibly rare. In most cases you end up with a movie that is watchable, but far from remarkable. This is the case with Macbeth. It ended up being something that I could sit through, but not anything that I was clamoring to make part of my collection.

Geoffrey Wright’s take on Macbeth was meant to be contemporary and edgy but it failed to meet the incredible story that Macbeth is at Shakespeare’s hand. Wright’s Macbeth is set in present-day Melbourne and Sam Worthington (The Great Raid) is one of the lead soldiers in a crime family. Macbeth works for Duncan who is played by Gary Sweet. Like in the story, he is visited by some witches while in mourning his child’s death. The witches offer a vision of Macbeth ruling the land that he currently watches over.

Like a power hungry woman, the drug addicted Lady Macbeth (Victoria Hill) learns of this wonderful news and immediately begins crafting a plot to kill Duncan. Lady Macbeth ensures that her husband (or should we call him patsy) is going to go through with things so that once Duncan is dead they can reign supreme as the leaders of the family.

However, insanity is just around the corner, as Macbeth takes his throne in the midst of suspicious, watchful eyes and in the despair of his own paranoia at what he has done. Macbeth spirals deeper into the abyss as he kills one of his only true friends, Banquo (Steve Bastoni) and the people he thought were his friends begin plotting against him. Meanwhile Lady Macbeth senses her husband’s insanity and drops deeper into her own insanity pool. Macbeth fights as hard as he can to stay in power and the body count rises on both sides to help make or break Macbeth’s future.

Like in Romeo and Juliet the modern day setting is evident, but the speech is Shakespearean. For the most part this is a distraction that will stop many from enjoying the film. The story on its own is fabulous, but if you are going to upgrade the setting Wright should have considered modernizing the lines, as well. The characters tend to fall flat, the emotion is lacking (if it is there at all), and the entire production is watchable but lacking substance.

When it comes to the film quality things are fine. There are some dark moments, but it’s obvious that those are intended. The film is presented in widescreen with a ratio of 1.78:1. Audio is offered in Dolby Digital 5.1 so hearing is not a problem either. Special features include a Making Of featurette and that about wraps up the film.

As a lover of Shakespeare and movies I am advising my faithful readers to rent this before purchasing. A trip to Blockbuster will do you some good and it will save you the hassle of trying to sell this DVD on eBay should you discover that it’s not your cup of tea.

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