Macbeth
Metascore
51 out of 100

Mixed or average reviews - based on 15 Critics

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 7 out of 15
  2. Mixed: 4 out of 15
  3. Negative: 4 out of 15
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  1. Entertainment Weekly
    Reviewed by: Lisa Schwarzbaum
    83
    The words belong to Mr. Shakespeare. All else in this Macbeth is the pleasurably fevered invention of brash Australian director Geoffrey Wright.
  2. The New York Times
    Reviewed by: Matt Zoller Seitz
    80
    For four centuries William Shakespeare’s plays have been reinvented to fit contemporary sensibilities. But few recent efforts can match the Australian writer and director Geoffrey Wright’s brutal and thrilling new version.
  3. The Hollywood Reporter
    Reviewed by: Megan Lehmann
    70
    This is Shakespeare as action film --- furiously paced and unapologetically cinematic.
  4. Chicago Reader
    Reviewed by: Albert Williams
    70
    Thoughtful, sexually charged, and sometimes brutal, this Australian drama by director Geoffrey Wright updates the setting of Shakespeare's play but stays true to its themes, offering fresh insight into the characters and verse.
  5. Seattle Post-Intelligencer
    Reviewed by: Bill White
    67
    Although the film is entertaining, its cleverness is not enough to cover its shortcomings.
  6. The A.V. Club
    Reviewed by: Tasha Robinson
    67
    It's Macbeth by way of “The Covenant,” all brooding pretty-boys with emo eyes and hipster hair, standing around in gauzily decorated rich-kid boudoirs in the dead of night, and at times, it's too overblown to take seriously.
  7. TV Guide
    Reviewed by: Ken Fox
    63
    The famous soliloquies are heard in voice-over -- a risky idea that works -- and Wright has found clever ways of naturalizing the play's more supernatural elements.
  8. Empire
    Reviewed by: David Parkinson
    60
    Poetic but bleekly pessimistic version of the Danish tragedy.
  9. San Francisco Chronicle
    Reviewed by: Ruthe Stein
    50
    Visually, the film is a stunner, dotted with psychedelic colors and many shades of red -- one battle is fought with red laser-gun sights -- some looking realistically like blood. When gangsters open fire, their falls are choreographed like a ballet. The problem comes when the cast opens its mouth and Elizabethan dialogue tumbles out.
  10. Austin Chronicle
    Reviewed by: Josh Rosenblatt
    50
    Best just to say Macbeth is coming down hard and leave it at that.
  11. Variety
    Reviewed by: Richard Kuipers
    40
    Something indeed wicked this way comes in a mangled Macbeth set in contempo gangland Melbourne.
  12. Chicago Tribune
    Reviewed by: Michael Phillips
    38
    It's all very "Scarface"--the De Palma remake of "Scarface," not the Hawks original. In other words, it doesn't feel modern at all. It feels about a generation late and 400 years short.
  13. Village Voice
    Reviewed by: Brian Miller
    30
    The rush into gunfights and car chases pushes the text in all the wrong directions. As written, the 400-year-old words are still fresher than anything ripped from “Miami Vice.”
  14. Los Angeles Times
    Reviewed by: Kevin Crust
    30
    The film is strictly straight-to-video action movie stuff, albeit with dialogue in iambic pentameter.
  15. New York Post
    Reviewed by: Kyle Smith
    25
    Say hello to my leetle dagger! Shakespeare meets "Scarface" in an Aussie adaptation of "Macbeth" gone gangsta.

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