Macbeth (2015) Movie Review
R | 1h 53min
Genre: Drama, War
Director: Justin Kurzel
Writer: Jacob Koskoff, Michael Lesslie, Todd Louiso
Stars: Michael Fassbender, Marion Cotillard, Paddy Considine, Sean Harris
Plot: Macbeth, the Thane of Glamis, receives a prophecy from a trio of witches that one day he will become King of Scotland. Consumed by ambition and spurred to action by his wife, Macbeth murders his king and takes the throne for himself.
Another Shakespeare films, another Macbeth remake, another interpretation. When ever you think of those phrases there is normally a negative connotation that comes along with it. You can't really blame anyone for it because a lot of the time a new retelling never holds up to the previous.
Does the 2015 Macbeth hold up? or does it sink to the rest of the remakes that have failed before it?
I remember when I first saw the trailer to the film, having no knowledge of the film being made or that it was releasing in 2015. To my surprise the trailer was actually fantastic, it built the film up to be an epic & dark interpretation with modern film making techniques. It also looked so stylized that I thought it could be an experimental indie film. I couldn't tell if this movie would be great or just a movie that will completely go under the radar because it was just too different from the standard modern epics.
Now that I have seen the film I can finally talk about the movie that captivated me from the trailer...
The movies looks gorgeous! I am surprised at how much this went under the radar as being one of the best looking movies of the year. The use of slow motion and wide shots give the film a very stylized look and feel pushing the overall film to higher merits. The action was intense, in a age where so many fight scenes feel energetic or over the top its nice to see a film make them look good again. No quick cuts or ridiculous choreography, its gripping and the way its presents gives it an epic feel appropriate for the time period.
Michael Fassbender does a fantastic job at playing this character. You see a man that goes from a warrior to a corrupt king in a very visual way. This is played off of nicely to Marion Cotillard who also does an incredible job at playing these characters with complex personalities. Sean Harris and David Thewlis were also standouts in their supporting roles as Macduff and Duncan and gave a nice contrast to the leads, especially with their characters not being no where near as ruthless and corrupt as them.
I had a hard time keeping up with the dialogue of this movie. At some points its very good and you can understand every word that is being spoken. For everything else, its really hard to keep up. Its like they borrowed partly from the Shakespeare play of dialogue and incorporated it into the current sentence structure. Its not over the top like it would be normally performed in a play, but it does seem a bit old and hard to understand what they are even talking about.
The visuals up hold this films greatly and if it weren't for the good acting and spectacle of the cinematography this wouldn't be anything special. I think it mostly comes from the source material, which isn't the best of Shakespeare's writing but has, like all of his plays, became a popular staple in classical stories. That being said, the filmmakers did their best to tell this story in the most grounded style that can feel believable with out feeling too outdated or misrepresented.
Macbeth is one of the best looking movies of the year, and that alone makes the film worth watching. The great performances will keep your attention through the story and really make you believe in this word and these characters. This is a movie to watch on a cold dark night where you want a movie with style to fit the environment and with that its worth seeing.
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