In 11th century Scotland, King Duncan (David Thewlis) has just put down a rebellion with the help of his thane and cousin, Macbeth (Michael Fassbender). Out of gratitude, Duncan promises to bestow great honors and lands and even greater rewards upon Macbeth. But this is not enough. For you see, after the battle was won, Macbeth happened upon four witches who prophecize that HE will be king of Scotland. While Macbeth might have been content to let the prophecy come true of its own accord, his wife, Lady Macbeth, (Marion Cotillard) wants to speed up the process a bit. By murdering King Duncan. What happens after that is pretty predictable, summed up by Shakespeare's quote, "...blood will have blood."
Director Justin Kurzel begins the movie with a scene that never happens in the play. It shows Macbeth and his wife burying what appears to be their only child, a young daughter. I didn't really see the point of adding this in. Was it supposed to make us think that it had something to do with the action that happens in the movie? Are the Macbeths in a state of emotional disarray that allows the witchs' prophecies to work on their weakened minds? Is this the what increases Macbeth's jealousy and resentment of the fate that he will have no heirs as king while Banquo will be father of MANY kings? Perhaps.
Something else that kinda threw me off was the witches. In the play they are evil, hideous creatures that take delight in causing the fall of Macbeth and all the death and destruction it brings. In the movie, Kurzel increases their number by one and depicts them as essentially normal looking humans. They seem to represent the different stages of mortality, being composed of a baby, a young girl,a middle aged woman, and an old woman. In contrast to the witches in the play, these look sad and almost regretful of what they are doing. In the play, the witches' motivations are pretty straightforward. They want to do bad things to Macbeth. Here they just seem like innocent peasants drafted into someone else's nightmare. It just never seemed clear to me who or what the witches were or what they wanted in this movie.
To me, there were two things that dragged down this film. First up, Michael Fassbender's performance rings false. I could swear he swallowed some bars or other pharmaceutical depressants before his scenes. I've seen him in a lot of movies and he's always on point, but in this movie it all just seems so dialed in most of the time. His eyes just look dead. Every once in a while, maybe for about 5 minutes in total, Fassbender does do some acting instead of reciting. This occurs mostly in the parts where Macbeth's sanity is starting to go, such as during the dinner scene where Banquo's ghost shows up. During these brief spurts you get a glimpse of what the movie COULD have been.
Fassbender's performance ties in directly to the second major thing that sank this movie for me. Namely, all the actors are so restrained that they literally WHISPER 95% of their dialogue. I don't know if Kurzel specifically told all his actors to whisper, but he must have, because they ALL do it. The play of Macbeth is not an extended monologue. The actors need to communicate with each other and react. On top of the low voice level, the acting itself is pure deadpan, except for Macduff (Sean Harris). At least he seems to get upset and his voice more occasionally rises to a normal talking level. Think Star Wars prequel Jedi acting and multiply that by 10 to gauge the emotional range of the performers in this movie.
The barely audible bad acting in Maceth falls squarely on the shoulders of Justin Kurzel. I understand what he was trying to do here. He was trying to do an art house movie with lots of mood and ominous foreboding but seemed to lack the talent to accomplish it. For example, there's a big fire at the end and he chooses to just wash out the whole picture with orange and red in a move of heavy handed symbolism. He just seems to place things in the movie that make no sense and just expects the audience to say "oooo, that's cool!". Unfortunately, Kurzel is teaming up with Fassbender again in the upcoming Assassin's Creed movie, which makes me become very unexcited.
Skip this version of Macbeth and seek out another. This movie is free to stream on Amazon Prime. Best Buy has the blu-ray on sale for $7.99 this week.
My Grade: D-
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