Macbeth

Shakespeare's “Scottish play” has been adapted to the screen by auteurs Roman Polanski and Orson Welles, and the title role of the murderous Thane has been played by actors such as Sam Worthington and James LeGros. Now director Justin Kurzel (The Snowtown Murders) takes his stab at updating the tragedy. Screenwriters Jacob Koskoff, Michael Lesslie and Todd Louiso take some interesting chances with the material—Macbeth (Michael Fassbender) is a battle-scarred soldier disintegrating from PTSD, Lady Macbeth (Marion Cotillard) is less of a hysterical schemer and more of an abused and depressed housewife—while Kurzel and cinematographer Adam Arkapaw strive for a balance between the highly stylized and the highly intimate. There's a lot to like on a conceptual level, but the execution is one-note and monotonous, like Zack Snyder without the pulp madness, and while Fassbender and Cotillard are fine in the leads, they get strangled by Kurzel's overwrought visual style. D.B.